


The Cold Untroubled Heart

by Miko



Series: The Lonely Hearts Club [2]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Angst with a Happy Ending, Barry Allen Is A Human Vibrator, Canon-Typical Violence, Cop!Len, Daddy Issues, Enemies to Lovers, Flirting, M/M, Meta!Len, Murder, Panic Attacks, Past Child Abuse, Reluctant Hero, Secret Identity, Serial Killers, Temperature Play, Touch-Starved, family violence, thief!Barry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-05
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2018-10-15 05:42:29
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 19
Words: 69,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10551032
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miko/pseuds/Miko
Summary: For nearly a year Captain Cold has been playing literal cops and robbers with the Flash, but the lightning-fast thief remains just out of the hero's grasp. The Flash loves to taunt and flirt with him, and turns everything between them into a challenge that's more fun than it should be. Secretly, Len enjoys the teasing far too much.Then bodies start turning up around the city, and the evidence says a speedster is responsible. The game has turned deadly, and nothing will stop Len from protecting his city. Not even his own disappointment and sense of betrayal. He should have known better than to think there might be some good in an unrepentant criminal.Barry knows the Flash isn't killing anyone, but he can't convince Snart without revealing his identity. The last thing he wants is to ruin his relationship with the man who is both hero and nemesis to him. Worse, the murders are chillingly similar to those committed by Barry's father, and the set-up feels like a personal attack on Barryandthe Flash. He has to find the killer and prove his innocence before Cold hunts down the Flash, which means he's in a race against the one thing even he may not be fast enough to beat... time.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [The Cold Untroubled Heart](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14661693) by [jeckselent](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeckselent/pseuds/jeckselent)



> You don't need to read the first story in the series to understand this one, but it will give you some useful background. 
> 
>  
> 
> Hard to believe this is my 200th fic posted on AO3. There are still some old ones from my website that I haven't even shifted over yet - and, thankfully, many MUCH older ones that have long since been lost to corrupt hard drives and file formats that no longer have programs to read them. It's interesting to see how much my style has changed and improved over the years!

_'The proud, the cold untroubled heart of stone, that never mused on sorrow but its own.' - Thomas Campbell_

* * *

One little piece of paper shouldn’t have the power to make such an impact. Especially not on a desk already covered with stacks and piles of other papers - being the lieutenant in charge of a busy homicide department meant the paperwork inevitably got out of hand. No matter how meticulous he was, and Leonard Snart was pretty damn meticulous.

This paper was different from all the rest. It lay on top of his desk, away from the other stacks, folded in half to protect its contents from prying eyes. Growling, Len slammed his office door shut behind him before he snatched up the paper. He already knew what it had to be, and he didn’t want anyone else seeing it.

Sure enough, when he unfolded it he found a few short, neatly typed lines. Seemingly innocent, yet utterly damning if anyone else read it and put the pieces together after the fact.

_11:30 Rathaway Industries roof. Don’t be late - you know I hate waiting._

Crumpling the paper in his fist, Len mentally rearranged his evening. So much for his tickets to the hockey game with Mick. Damn it, he’d been _determined_ to take a night off, for a change.

It didn’t matter. If the Flash was calling out Captain Cold, then Captain Cold would damn well be there. Sooner or later, he was going to catch the lightning-fast thief, and tonight might just be that night.

* * *

Well before the indicated time, Len was on the roof of the building in question. It wasn’t the first time he’d tried ambushing the thief, but this was the best chance he’d had yet. Why Flash insisted on giving Len advance warning of his heists, Len had no idea, but it had started after the second time they’d tangled.

Judging by the asshole’s taunting, he just liked thumbing his nose at authority and proving he could get away with his crimes even with the city’s hero standing right there in front of him. 

The smart thing to do would have been to have an entire police squad waiting, but it would have meant explaining why the Flash was taunting a homicide lieutenant. Plus… well, odd as it sounded, Len felt like it would be cheating. This was between Captain Cold and the Flash, not a cop and a thief.

It didn’t take long to find a good hiding spot near the only access into the building. The Flash would have to pass by him, and almost certainly wouldn’t spot Len tucked into the small space between vents.

Reaching down, he braced his fingertips on the concrete rooftop and sent his power questing outward. Tendrils of frost spread rapidly over the area in front of the door. He kept the ice thin, barely a molecule thick and nearly invisible. Concentrating hard, he made it smooth and slippery enough to create the closest thing to a frictionless surface that could exist on Earth. 

He’d never tried something like this before, and it required a lot more effort than simply blasting things with shattering cold. By the time he had the slick surface ready, he was sweating hard in his parka. He took a moment to chill himself down again, worried about overheating. Then he focused on releasing a thin trickle of power to keep the ice he’d created from melting. 

Seconds and minutes ticked away in Len’s head, drawing ever closer to the moment of truth. And then past it. Flash was often late, which seemed ridiculous for someone who could move far faster than the speed of sound, but there it was. 

At 11:33, lightning finally struck. The distinctive energy trail came from _inside_ the building, rather than up the side as Len had expected. The Flash was leaving, not entering, which meant Len would only get one chance to stop him. 

The speedster hit the ice and Len’s plan unfolded like beautiful clockwork, even if it was headed in the wrong direction. Flash slipped and landed hard on his ass - Len assumed judging by the thump and muffled exclamation - and the blur skidded across the rooftop to resolve itself into a tangled heap of limbs. 

Scrambling out of his hiding spot, Len lunged for the Flash with a shout of triumph. 

All he needed was one good shot. _One_ chance to get his hands on the speedy bastard long enough to freeze him. Len had managed to hit the man before, but only from a distance and only a grazing blast. His cold did slow the speedster down, so if he could get a clean blow…

His hand brushed slick material, and Len clamped down on whatever body part he’d caught. He poured everything he had into his powers, ice racing from the contact point over the other metahuman’s body.

The Flash cried out in pain. Len couldn’t take satisfaction from the sound; he would never _enjoy_ harming others, no matter how necessary. But he couldn’t deny he felt a certain sense of grim accomplishment. 

With a heave and a jerk the Flash wrenched himself free and rolled away, but he was moving at human speed and staggering. Len shoved himself to his feet and gave chase, tackling the other man to the rooftop and pinning him securely. 

“You’re under arrest,” Len declared, smug at finally besting the biggest thorn in his side since the accelerator explosion had turned his life upside down. “You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to…”

Flash was gasping for air, the sound pained, but to Len’s surprise he interrupted with a breathy laugh. “Damn, nice job, Cold. I honestly didn’t think you had it in you.”

The amusement and respect in his tone were clear despite the way he always vibrated to distort his voice and blur his face. Len itched to rip the mask off and get a good look at that face once and for all, but he wasn’t letting go until he was _certain_ he had the thief subdued. He started pouring out power again, forming manacles of ice to bind the asshole’s arms together.

“Don’t think you’re going to distract me into not finishing your rights and thereby get yourself off the hook,” Len told him. “I’m not that sloppy.” 

“How exactly are you planning to arrest me as Captain Cold?” Flash turned his head to peer back over his shoulder at Len. “Or are you going to out yourself as a cop for the sake of getting the credit of busting me?”

“Is that a blackmail threat?” Len narrowed his eyes. There was no question the Flash knew who he was, not when the thief had been leaving taunting notes and teasing presents in his office for the better part of a year. He’d never understood why the blackmail hadn’t come before, but maybe Flash had been saving it for exactly this moment.

“ _Please._ As if you’d give in.” Flash snorted. “Anyway, the city needs you right where you are. Not like anyone else is stepping up to handle the metahuman threats.”

“What do you care?” Was the Flash actually promising he wouldn’t give away Len’s secret?

“Being a thief doesn’t mean I want to see innocent people get hurt.” Flash’s face might be blurred, but Len got the distinct impression the man was glaring at him.

“A criminal with a conscience. How cute.” Satisfied with the thickness of the ice shackling Flash’s arms behind his back, Len clambered to his feet and hauled the thief up after him. “I suppose I’ll have to wrap you up and deliver you to the police like my usual catches. Captain Cold will get the credit. It’s not important that Leonard Snart does as well.”

“Good plan,” Flash agreed, sounding far too cheerful. “Except I wasn’t distracting you so you’d forget to finish reading my rights.” 

The subtle vibration of his body beneath Len’s hands increased abruptly, and even through his suit there was an increase in his body temperature, as well. 

Len had thought the vibration was a side effect of whatever the meta did to blur his face, and now he cursed himself for the assumption. It seemed the Flash had been warming himself up, instead.

Swearing, he thrust more power at the Flash, but it was too late. The bastard yanked free of Len’s grasp, the ice manacles shattering as he vibrated his hands free. Len lunged for him again, but Flash zipped to the other side of the roof. 

The meta was moving far slower than usual, but still fast enough to evade Len. Even if Len could catch him again, he’d already expended so much power, he wasn’t sure he could manage much more before he had a chance to recover. He clenched his hands into useless fists. 

“I nearly got you this time,” he growled. “One of these days your reckoning will come, Ginger.”

Flash tilted his head. “Why do you call me that, anyway? Just ‘cause the suit’s red doesn’t mean my hair is. Also, that’s kinda offensive.”

“It’s not that.” Len snorted. “You know. Run, run, as fast as you can…”

“You’ll never catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.” Flash laughed, apparently delighted by the nickname. “I like it. Glad the papers didn’t think of it first, though. Gingerbread doesn’t have nearly the same ring to it as the Flash.”

“You prefer to sound like someone who exposes himself in parks?” Len shot back, and got a snigger in response from the other man. 

The banter was familiar, one more way the Flash liked to taunt him with his inability to catch the thief. Len used the opportunity to circle the other meta, trying to get him into a position where Len would be able to back him into a corner.

Even if he knew it was futile, he would never give up trying.

“I might be willing to expose myself to _you_ , if you ask nicely enough.” Flash grinned, the expression visible even through the blurring effect. “I mean, you keep trying so hard to get your hands on me, and now you’re giving me pet names. I really do wonder sometimes if you’re chasing me for the reasons you think you are, Cold.”

This kind of banter was also familiar. Flash often flirted, probably as an attempt to fluster him. It was a futile effort. Len was an openly pansexual cop, and he’d had plenty of people try to use it against him. 

“Let me catch you, and you’ll find out.” Len dropped into a suggestive purr of his own. He wasn’t above using the same tactic. Hell, it was the only flirting he got to do, anymore. Might as well enjoy it, if it was going to happen anyway.

Only in the dead of the night, when he was alone and lonely in his chilly bed, did Len allow himself to contemplate the idea that the Flash might _mean_ it on some level . Or what that might lead to. In his fantasies, he could give in to the heat between them without worrying about getting burned.

“Mmm, tempting.” Flash actually _sounded_ tempted, or at least wistful. “Someday when I’m feeling particularly stupid, I might even see if I could at least get a kiss before you arrest me. Not tonight, though. Better luck next time, Cold.”

Then he was gone, and even his lightning vanished so fast Len saw it more as an after effect than the actual light itself. 

Sighing, Len rubbed at his face with one hand. His body ached, joints protesting the long period of inactivity when he’d been hiding, the rest of him dragging with heat and exhaustion after expending so much power. He was too old to be running around the city playing hero, and he knew it.

Problem was, as the Flash had said, nobody else was stepping up to do the job. And it was undeniably satisfying to be saving people instead of waiting to deal with the aftermath of violence. He was a damn good lieutenant, but the desk job bored the hell out of him sometimes. 

A blast of wind nearly knocked him off his feet. Startled, Len braced himself and looked up, frost already dancing over his fingers. He expected to see Weather Wizard or some other meta after him for revenge, but it was the Flash standing barely out of arm’s length in front of him.

“Wait.” Flash put his hands out, palms forward as if he could physically hold Len’s powers back. “There’s a body in the alley below.”

Len stared, incredulous. “If you think I’m going to fall for that old chestnut…”

“Cold, I was already _gone_.” Flash sounded impatient. “Why would I need to come back and lie to you in order to get away?”

He had a point. It also raised a further question. “Why come back at all?”

Flash sighed, a weary sound rather like the one Len had made when the thief got away in the first place. “She’s mostly hidden, it could be days before somebody stumbles across her again. She deserves better than that.”

Despite himself, Len’s respect for the man rose a notch. Most criminals wouldn’t have thought much about the respect a dead woman in an alley deserved. Maybe Flash had meant it, when he said he wouldn’t turn Len in because the city needed Captain Cold. 

Still. It made no sense for him to return and risk restarting the fight. “So make an anonymous report to the police,” Len suggested. What did Flash even think Len could do about it, off duty and working as Cold?

Though Len couldn’t see the gesture, he got the distinct impression that the Flash rolled his eyes. The thief certainly sounded exasperated when he answered. “Or I could talk to the cop standing right in front of me while the _body’s still warm_.”

Len went tense, his mind spinning through the various implications. “You didn’t mention that part.” If the body was warm enough to be noticeable, the death must have been quite recent. It might even have happened while he and Flash were up here fighting on the roof. Len couldn’t help but feel guilty that someone might have died while he was, effectively, playing around. “Show me.”

“Promise you’re not going to use the chance to freeze me, again.” Flash crossed his arms. “You’ve been working for a year to get your hands on me, sadly not in the fun way despite what I said earlier. This would be your perfect opportunity.”

“I’m fairly certain I’m the more trustworthy of the two of us, not being a criminal.”

Flash laughed. “Funny thing, last I checked it was still illegal to be a vigilante. I’ve _never_ hurt anyone. Can you say the same?”

It was true that to the best of Len’s knowledge, the Flash had never physically harmed anyone. If anything, the thief seemed to take pride in being so good that nobody even knew he was there until he was already gone. 

Except for his challenges to Captain Cold, that is. But he’d never hurt Len in their fights, either. Driven him half crazy running literal circles around him, yes. But not hurt him. 

That was one of the reasons Len had been willing to play his little game, keep the battles only between the two of them. And, if he was being honest with himself, the challenge was unexpectedly… fun. As was the flirting, which wouldn’t have happened if he had a squad of cops around him.

Probably. Maybe. On second thought, that was absolutely something the Flash would do.

“I won’t freeze you until after the body is dealt with,” Len promised. “But I swear, Flash, if this is some kind of trick, you _will_ regret it.”

“Sure I will.” Between one blink and the next the Flash was pressed up against him, chest to chest with his arms around Len’s waist. “You might want to take a deep breath.”

In direct opposition to the instruction, Len’s breath caught in his throat. How long had it been since he’d been this close to someone? Not since he'd gotten his powers, and nearly killed Lisa the first time he touched her. Len had always been a lone wolf, but he'd never denied himself contact with the few people he trusted. Now he couldn't let anyone close, for their own safety, and it was slowly taking its toll.

Even with his thick parka and the Flash's suit between them, Len could feel the other man’s incredible heat. Fiercely he repressed a shudder of desire, held back the need to reach out and soak himself in that warmth. It would only burn him, literally and figuratively - but that didn't stop him from craving it, especially from someone he was already reluctantly attracted to.

Then they were _moving_ , and gravity turned on its side for the space of a heartbeat. Len’s animal hindbrain had just enough time to register that he was _falling down the side of the building_ , and suddenly attraction was the last thing on his mind. Then everything was right side up again and they’d come to a halt in the alley below.

He held himself rigid as the Flash stepped out of reach, refusing to show that the change in location had affected him in any way. Even if his brain was still gibbering about momentum in excess of terminal velocity and how a stop that abrupt should have smeared him into paste. 

“That was fun,” Len drawled. Actually it had been, the kind of crazy thrill experienced by base jumpers and other extreme sports participants. If he ever had the chance to do it again, he’d probably enjoy it. “God, when I think about how fast you could respond to emergency calls…”

Central was a big city, and there was only so much Captain Cold could do. He monitored the police frequencies and headed for anything that sounded like there might be meta involvement, but far too often he was late on the scene. 

“Yeah, I’ll leave the self-sacrificing hero stuff to you.” Flash gave him an ironic salute. “Not really my style. Body’s over here.”

The dead woman was tucked away in a tiny space that was sort of an alley to the alley, and as Flash had said, it was unlikely she’d have been found again soon. Stepping carefully closer, Len noted other footprints in the muck around her.

“That was you?” he asked, pointing at the prints. Flash nodded, and Len made a mental note. He’d have to arrange to be the investigating officer for this somehow, or he’d have no way to ensure that was taken into account. No sense wasting resources chasing ‘evidence’ that was nothing of the sort.

There were no other prints. The woman looked peaceful, though the body had the unnaturally still quality of a corpse that meant Len could never mistake her as sleeping. She was dressed - if he used the word generously - in a ripped fishnet body stocking and very minimal coverage of the necessary bits to avoid a public indecency charge. Likely one of the local ‘working girls’. 

Crouching beside her, he placed two fingertips on the pulse point at her neck, just to be sure. There was no heartbeat. Everyone seemed warm to him these days, even corpses, but she did seem to be not much cooler than a living person felt.

Glancing back, he raised an eyebrow at the Flash. Frankly he was surprised the thief was still there - he’d done his part, getting Len to the body. Not that Len didn’t appreciate it, since he did need those extra details. “You touch her?”

“Exactly like you did, checked the pulse at her neck. That’s all.”

“How do you check a pulse at super speed?”

“I can’t. That’s why it took me a minute to come back for you.” Flash crouched as well, though he was out of reach. He glanced over the scene. “No sign of injuries, defensive or otherwise. Given the location… could be a drug overdose? Tox screen will show for sure.”

Len’s lips twitched with a reluctant smile. It was a good analysis. “You sound like one of my CSI team.”

Flash laughed, as if startled. “What can I say? I love police procedural shows. You’d be surprised how much I’ve learned from them. There’s no way you can report this from here - if you stash your gear anywhere near here, they’ll find it and think it’s evidence Captain Cold was involved.”

“And if I leave, report it anonymously, I won’t be assigned the case.” Len grimaced as he stood. Hell, the investigating officer would be chasing down the owner of _his_ prints in the grime, as well as the Flash’s. 

“Well, there’s a simple solution for that.” Flash sounded downright cheerful. “I’ve always wondered, what _do_ you wear under that parka?”

“Why…” Len hadn’t even finished the word before there was a whirlwind around him, and a tugging sensation that nearly staggered him. When the blur resolved itself back into the Flash, Len had been stripped of his coat and the thief was now examining it curiously. “Damn it, Ginger, that’s my favourite jacket.”

“Afraid you won’t get it back?” Flash grinned. “I suppose I’m not exactly known for returning what I steal. Maybe I won’t… you look pretty good in tight clothes.”

“Says the guy in skin-tight red leather.” And privately Len had to admit the other meta had one damn fine ass in that signature outfit. Not to mention the rest of his sleek runner’s physique. The musculature could have been padding, but Len doubted it.

The thermal gear Len wore beneath the parka was going to look a little odd, but passable in the early autumn evening. Flash had snatched his goggles along with the parka, so he wouldn’t have to worry about those, either. 

Bundling up the jacket and goggles, Flash nodded at him. “Phone is now in your pants pocket, by the way. Guess I’ll see you around, Cold.”

“Wait…” Again the thief was gone before Len could get the word out. Honestly he wasn’t even sure what he’d have said. Ask Flash to stick around and give a statement? Not likely. 

Echoing his earlier sigh of exasperation and weariness, he pulled the phone out of his pocket and dialled the precinct dispatch. “This is Lieutenant Snart, I’ve got a possible 187…”

All in all, while the night certainly hadn’t been a win, it almost felt like a draw. Len had come so close to pinning the thief down, and while that was frustrating in its own way, it was also encouraging.

One of these nights, Captain Cold _was_ going to catch the Flash.


	2. Chapter 2

Most of the time, it didn't matter that Barry was the son of Central City's most notorious killer. It had been ten years since his father's arrest, and because Barry had been a minor at the time, not much of the news coverage had focused on him. People didn't recognize him on the streets, and most wouldn't even know his name.

Cops, however, had notoriously long memories. There were quite a few who subscribed to the 'bad apple' theories, and seemed to truly believe that it was only a matter of time before Barry's 'innocent act' broke and he showed his ‘true colours’.

It made working in a police station distinctly awkward sometimes. If not for Lieutenant Leonard Snart and Detective Joe West - both highly respected officers - standing so staunchly behind Barry, his job would have been intolerable.

Today, however, seemed to be worse than usual. _Everyone_ was staring, or worse, doing the stare-then-look-away-fast thing that was even more obvious. Conversations stopped abruptly as he walked into the station, and whispers rose behind him.

Baffled, Barry detoured by the bullpen on his way to the CSI lab and stopped by a familiar worn desk. "Hey, Joe? Is it just me, or am I getting more of the stink-eye than usual?"

The older man looked up, dark eyes weary and sad. "You haven't seen the board yet, have you?"

Frowning, Barry turned toward the front of the bullpen. There was a giant whiteboard up there, with all the unsolved crimes currently being investigated and the status of each. Dozens of photos and notes were pinned up with magnets, and there was so much writing crammed into the rest of the space it looked solid from this distance. "No, I just got in."

Joe gave him a pointed look, and Barry rubbed his nose sheepishly. He was late far more often than not, and ironically the tendency had only gotten worse since he'd gained the power to move faster than sound. 

For once, he'd actually been _early_ , but he'd had to hang around outside waiting until Len left his office so he could vibrate through the wall, hang up the stolen parka, and vibrate out again.

Too bad he couldn't leave a camera behind. Len’s reaction when he saw the coat would be priceless.

Joe had that carefully neutral expression all cops cultivated, but the look in his eyes was far too close to pity for Barry's comfort. "Sorry, Barr. It's gonna be a bad day for you."

The world seemed to slow as Barry's thoughts raced, his powers responding to his spike of adrenaline. He barely kept the effect from spreading from his mind to his body, not wanting to start sparking lightning right here in front of the city's finest.

There was only one reason Joe would be giving him _that_ look. Something had happened that was going to remind everyone of Henry Allen's infamous killing spree. A murder, probably a nasty one. 

The urge to speed over there and find out what was going on was overwhelming, but Barry fought it off. With an effort he dropped back to normal speed, and the tick of the clock's second hand finally moving forward sounded like an explosion. As casually as he could, he sauntered over to the wall to check out the board.

He knew his attempt at nonchalance had failed by the scattered looks of contempt and pity from the various officers in the area, but he kept his attention forward and his chin up. He might not have much, but he had his pride, and he refused to let his father's horrific choices take that from him.

At the board, it wasn't hard to spot the problem case. The newest photo, meaning the most recently discovered murder, was a woman who was familiar to Barry in two haunting ways. It was the same woman he'd found in the alley after the fight with Cold the night before, but alive and smiling in a picture someone must have pulled from social media.

Candace Wilson, according to the board. She was a redhead, something he'd missed in the dark of the stinking alley, and that made her familiar in another way. 

She matched his father's victim profile. Tall, beautiful redheads had been Henry Allen's prey of choice, every one of them at least vaguely resembling his first victim - Nora Allen, his wife and Barry's mother.

And at the top of the autopsy report pinned to the board, a note that the heart was missing from her chest.

That had been the signature style of the Lonely Hearts Killer, a serial murderer who'd killed nine women across the country in the span of five years. A killer who'd been none other than Barry's father. 

It felt like _his_ heart stopped in his chest, and he had to force himself to take his next breath. Barry fought a surge of nausea. Small wonder everyone was staring and whispering, with a reminder like this dangling in front of them.

Realizing his hands were shaking, he tucked them into his pockets so nobody could tell. He couldn't afford to show weakness when everyone was watching him, judging him. Teeth clenched against the scream that wanted to escape him, Barry turned and headed for his lab, hoping he was managing something like a normal pace.

Nobody started shouting about the Flash, so he must have stayed within human norms. Only when he shut the door of his lab behind him could Barry draw a full breath that was nearly a sob. Leaning against the door to keep it from opening, Barry finally allowed himself to react.

The room closed in on him, edges going dark, and the air was sucked from his lungs as an invisible hand closed around his heart. Shivering, Barry wrapped his arms around himself and hung on tight. He could feel his powers surging through him, knew he was probably vibrating so fast he was a blur, but he couldn’t stop it.

In his mind he could hear his mother’s choked screams, her cries as she begged her husband for mercy. He could feel the terrified sobs building up in his throat, unable to escape as his father squeezed too tight for Barry to breathe. He could see the cold, vicious anger in his father’s eyes as the man stood over the wife and child he’d caught trying to leave him.

And he could smell the blood, taste the thick, metallic tang of it hanging cloyingly in the air, as his father stabbed his mother over and over again.

Desperately, Barry tried to pull himself back to the present, to find an anchor to latch onto that would convince his subconscious that all the terror was in the past and couldn’t hurt him now.

The murder was a coincidence. It meant nothing. This wasn't the first redheaded woman killed since he’d started working as a CSI. It wasn't even the first time he'd seen the heart removed, though that was _much_ rarer. The combination had been bound to happen sooner or later. 

His father was behind bars in Iron Heights, serving a term of nine consecutive life sentences with no chance of parole. Henry Allen could never hurt Barry or anyone else again. 

Leonard Snart, Barry's hero and savior, had _promised_ him all those years ago that he was safe. Len never broke his promises. Ever.

Slowly Barry pulled himself together, getting his breathing and heart rate back under control. It had been a long time since he'd had a daylight panic attack like that. Years. He still got them sometimes when the worst of his nightmares came to haunt him and he woke in the dark thinking he'd been locked back into the punishment room, but never in the light.

Grateful that he worked in this lab alone, he pushed himself away from the door and tugged his shirt straight. He had a job to do, and he was damn well going to do it. That girl, Candace Wilson, was counting on him to help find and convict her killer.

Barry couldn't do anything to save the eight women who'd been killed because he had been too scared to tell anyone about his mother's murder. But he'd seen how having the closure of knowing their daughter or sister or wife's killer had been caught helped the loved ones of his father's victims. It was why he'd become a CSI, to make sure that monsters like his father weren't left free to kill again.

There was a box on his desk, a cooler from the morgue. Barry scowled as he approached it and checked the evidence tag. Everything had been filled out correctly, but it should have been handed directly to him, not left on his desk. Technically, that broke the chain of possession. It wasn't the first time the morgue guys got sloppy, but he'd have to have another talk with them.

Opening it up, he grimaced as he saw the organ within. As he'd suspected, it was the heart. Sent to him for a DNA test to be sure it actually was Candace Wilson's heart, and not a different victim's left behind at Wilson's crime scene for whatever sick reason. You never knew with killers like this. It was impossible to follow their logic train sometimes.

Steeling himself against another surge of panic, he reached in and took a slice from the muscle, careful to keep the sample as small as possible. He always felt bad, desecrating the bodies of the victims he processed. Really, the morgue should have sent him the sample and kept the organ, but they were being lazy again.

Processing the sample was a matter of moments, and then he slid it into the DNA sequencing machine and keyed it on. He didn't need a detailed analysis for this, just the basic sequencing to confirm that it belonged to the woman's body in the morgue. It shouldn't take too long.

How the hell had he missed the fact that the victim had her heart removed, when he found the body? It had been dark, almost too dark to see, but surely he should have noticed a gaping hole in the victim's chest. Unless it had been removed through the back, but that would mean cutting through more of the rib cage, creating far more work and mess. It made no sense.

As he turned back to his desk to tackle the enormous pile of paperwork sitting in his inbox, a tap on the door drew his attention. It opened to reveal Joe West. "Lieutenant Snart wants to talk to you, Barr."

"Of course he does." Barry sighed and stripped off his gloves, dumping them in the biohazard waste bin. Len would be worried about him, how he was handling this. The homicide lieutenant had a reputation for being a cold-hearted hard-ass, but those rare few people he allowed close knew it was all a front. Len watched over anyone he considered 'his' with the fierceness of a mother bear looking after her cubs.

Barry had been 'his' since the night he'd come to the then-detective for help, and he knew that would never change. He never wanted it to change, because Len had been a rock-solid foundation to him for nearly a decade. There was a reason it was the thought of Len’s promise that had allowed him to get through the panic.

Now, if only Barry could convince the man to see him as something more than the terrified, helpless fifteen-year-old he'd been back then. He wasn't a kid who needed protecting any more, damn it.

Joe clapped him on the shoulder as he passed, and Barry nodded his thanks for the support. Joe had been there for him too, inviting Barry to share holidays with him and his daughter Iris, claiming the events were 'too quiet with just the two of them'. Len and his sister Lisa came as well, since they didn't have any family but each other and Len had been Joe's partner for years. 

Those holidays had been the first experience Barry had with what a 'normal' family was supposed to be like. Loud, rowdy, and full of good-hearted teasing, instead of silent, cold, and terrorized into 'good' behaviour. 

Len's door was open but he was focused on paperwork, so Barry knocked and waited until the man looked up. "Sir. You wanted to see me?"

"Come in, Allen. Shut the door behind you."

Obeying, Barry squeezed into the tiny space and seated himself in one of the hard wooden chairs in front of Len's desk. A glimpse of dark blue over the lieutenant's shoulder caught his eyes, and he bit down hard on his lip to contain a snicker. 

Captain Cold's parka was still hanging on the coat rack where Barry had left it earlier. Len must have been too preoccupied with the murder to notice it when he returned from grabbing coffee. That was hilarious, but also more dangerous than Barry had intended. He'd assumed the man would stuff it out of sight immediately, not leave it out for someone else to see and potentially recognize it.

"Nice coat," he said, as casually as he could manage. "Isn't that just like the one Captain Cold wears?"

Len's head whipped around to look at the parka, and Barry coughed to cover a laugh. For a long moment the older man simply stared, then he sighed with what sounded like reluctant amusement. "What can I say? The man has good taste. I had that jacket long before he came onto the scene, I'm not going to stop wearing it now."

The lie was so smoothly delivered Barry would absolutely have bought it, if he hadn't known the truth. He let a little of his grin slip through, knowing Len would take it as teasing about a police lieutenant wearing the same coat as the city's vigilante. "Anyway. You called for me?"

The wry humour in Len's expression faded, replaced by wearied concern. "I want you to stay away from the Wilson case. I'm assigning it to the primary lab."

"What?" Barry sat bolt upright, staring at Len in shock. He'd expected a question about how he was holding up, not to be removed from the case. "Len, you can't do that!"

Len frowned at him, but Barry didn't care that he'd broken the rule about staying professional at work. This _was_ personal, damn it. He met Len's frown with a scowl of his own. "Len, please. I can handle it. I _need_ to handle it. If you take me off this, everyone in the precinct is going to be whispering about how you don't have faith in me to do things right when push comes to shove."

"I know, and I'm sorry, but this is about more than your professional pride." Len tapped his gloved fingers together, a gesture he used when he was thinking hard. "I have to consider the case as a whole. Any defense attorney worth their pay cheque will jump all over your involvement in this case. They'll say there's too much personal history, that you could have been distraught and made a mistake, or even fudged things to get a conviction because you felt guilty about your past. They'll slaughter you on the stand, and it will create a reasonable doubt. A murderer could go free. I _can't_ take that risk."

Every word felt like a stab through the heart, and they hurt because Barry knew Len was right. There was no way a defense lawyer would ignore the chance to throw doubt onto the evidence, and no way a jury wouldn't react badly to the reminder of just who the CSI on the case was. A few had tried exactly that tactic when he'd first started testifying on cases, but this time, with this much connection to his father's murders, there was a lot more chance they'd succeed in shattering Barry's credibility.

He couldn't let a murderer walk free because of his personal need to take on this case.

Blowing out a hard breath, he sank back in his chair and covered his face in his hands. "I hate it when you're right."

"I know." Len's tone gentled, and when Barry looked up he saw the older man leaning forward with a sympathetic expression. " _I_ have no doubt you could handle it, Barry. I'd never have convinced Captain Singh to hire you, if I didn’t believe in you one hundred percent. I even understand that you feel you need to. "

"But _you_ need me to be a professional and do my job, even when that means not doing my job," Barry finished for him. He was miserable at the thought, but he forced himself to straighten up and nod. "You know you can always count on me, Lieutenant."

"Good boy." Len's approving smile warmed Barry right through, even as he winced internally at the 'boy'. "It's not as if you'll be slacking off. We've got plenty of other cases for you to handle."

That was true, and Barry spared a guilty thought for the pile in his inbox. "All right. I'll pass the heart on to the other lab. They can rerun the DNA test if you think even that could be suspect because I handled... what?"

Len was giving him the oddest look, brows pinched and head tipped to one side in a mixture of wariness and confusion. "Heart? What are you talking about?"

"Huh? The victim's heart.” Barry wasn’t sure what was so difficult to understand about that. Did Len not realize the morgue had already passed it on to his lab? “I mean, I'm assuming it's hers, but the DNA test had just started when Joe told me you wanted me."

"Allen, the heart was missing."

"Yeah, removed from her chest. I saw the report." Barry felt no less baffled than Len looked. "I thought that's why it was sent to me, so I could confirm it belonged to the victim."

Standing, Len braced his hands on the desk and stared as though Barry was spouting Greek. "Missing as in _not found_. There was no heart at the crime scene!"

"Then whose heart was on my desk this morning with her name on the evidence tag?" Barry felt ill again, his mind whirling through the possibilities. Was it some kind of sick practical joke? Surely even the nastiest of the cops in the station who disliked him wouldn't go that far.

As if someone had pushed a button, they both started moving at the same time. Barry wrenched the door open and ran for his lab, Len falling behind despite Barry's frantic effort not to let his speed take over. Officers and detectives shouted confused questions at them from the bullpen as they bolted through the halls, but neither of them stopped to answer. Getting the door to his lab open took enough time for Len to catch up to him, and they piled into the attic space. 

Barry's desk was empty. Well, as empty as it ever got, the inbox still overflowing and reports and printouts scattered everywhere. There was no sign of the heart, or the cooler. Not so much as a drop of blood or a paper out of place showed that it had ever been there.

Wide-eyed, he turned to Len. "It was there. I swear it was there when I came in. Somebody moved it."

"Barry." Len's voice had that gentle tone again, but this time Barry resented it instead of welcoming it. "Did you have a panic attack?"

"I did _not_ hallucinate it," Barry snapped, stung. Len was one of the few people who knew about his attacks, having seen them for himself far too often in the first years after Henry Allen's arrest. "I don't imagine things just because I'm anxious, damn it. And if I was going to, it would have been in a jar like the ones my dad kept, not an evidence cooler."

"It's possible..."

A sharp beep interrupted whatever 'comforting' thing Len had been about to say. They both turned to look at the DNA sequencer, which was flashing a green light to indicate a test had finished.

Feeling like he was moving in a dream, Barry snatched up the printout. He skimmed the words, too fast for a normal human but _needing_ to know what it said. At least it was only one page, so he wouldn't give himself away by flipping too fast.

Then he read it again, and again, because he couldn’t convince himself it was true. Finally he looked up at Len, only then realizing the other man appeared frozen because of how fast Barry had sped up.

He wrenched himself back into normal speed, and held the report out to Len as silent proof that he wasn’t crazy. The older man took it, but didn't bother glancing down - he didn't have the technical background to be able to parse the graphs. "What does it say?" Len demanded.

"It's a match." Barry's voice cracked, and he swallowed hard. "The sample I ran was a match for Candace Wilson’s DNA. Her heart _was_ here. And now it's gone."


	3. Chapter 3

Len paced back and forth across Barry's lab, staring at the impossible printout in his hand. He thought best when he was moving. It could be as small as fidgeting his fingers, but for a problem this size, he needed more.

"It doesn't make any sense," he muttered, keeping his voice low enough that only Barry would hear him. He didn't want the whole damn precinct aware of what had happened, not yet. It would only create chaos and baseless accusations.

Quite a few of those accusations would be aimed at Barry, ranging from claiming he'd made the whole thing up to declaring he must have been the one to take the heart in the first place. Both thoughts were equally ridiculous to anyone who knew the kid well, but few of the men and women who worked with Barry every day had bothered to find out much about him.

More than that, Len _could not_ let this detail get out to the press. He'd already issued an order that nobody leak anything about the missing heart, but it would only last so long. As bad as it would be for Barry if his fellow cops knew, it would be far worse if it got into the papers.

This time, Barry didn't have the protection of being a minor. The newshounds would be all over him, dragging up the sordid past and portraying him in the worst light they could. Scandal sold more papers.

He turned to face Barry. The kid was leaning against the lab table for support, arms wrapped around himself and pale as a sheet, but his eyes burned with defiance. One sliver of Len's worry eased. Barry wasn't going to let this get the best of him.

" _None_ of this makes any sense," Len repeated. "Not just how it got in here, but how it got _anywhere_. Was it damaged?"

"It didn’t seem to be, but I'm far from an expert." Barry tilted his head. "What do you mean, how it got anywhere?"

Len smiled, grim humour getting the best of him. "You didn't read the whole report, did you. It wasn't cut out of her chest, or removed in any usual fashion. It wasn't even removed in any unusual fashion. There's _no wound_. The coroner had no idea anything was wrong until they started the autopsy."

"What?" Barry's breath caught audibly in this throat, and he stared at Len. "How could anything do that?"

"Isn't that the million dollar question." Len started pacing again, though this time he kept his attention on Barry. "If it had been a less important organ, the coroner said she might have assumed it was a bizarre mutation. But nothing can survive without a heart."

"A metahuman. It has to be." Barry bit his lip, and Len could see the thoughts racing behind his eyes. "Someone who can, I don't know, reshape flesh? Turn insubstantial, maybe?"

His suggestions triggered a horrible thought, and Len came to an abrupt halt. "There's one metahuman I know of who can reach through solid objects. He walks through walls, it's been caught on camera. The Flash."

Barry's eyes went very wide, and he straightened abruptly, like he'd been offended. "I would _never_..." he started passionately. There was a flicker in his expression, the briefest hesitation as he glanced at the door, then he continued more quietly. "I would never believe that. The Flash is a thief, not a killer."

"What you mean is, he's never killed before that we're aware of," Len corrected him. He felt sick to his stomach as his mind churned through all the implications. Flash was the one who'd 'found' the body. The coroner's estimated time of death meant Candace had died within a ten minute window of when Len had been fighting the thief on that rooftop. Flash had come up from inside the building, which meant he could have killed the girl before fighting Len, or in the minute he'd been gone before coming back.

Worse, Len knew for a fact the Flash had been in the precinct today, right around the time when Barry had found the heart. Cold's parka had not been in his office when Len arrived that morning, so Flash must have come in while he was getting coffee, not long before calling for Barry.

There was such a thing as coincidence, but this was hitting the three-time 'conspiracy' mark. 

"There's no way the Flash would do something like this," Barry argued, planting his hands on the desk and leaning forward like he could convince Len by force of will alone. "He doesn't hurt people. He makes a point of it."

"I know you see him as some kind of gentleman robber, Barry, but reality isn't like the fairy tales." Len shook his head. "Criminals escalate. It's what they do."

"You think _I_ don't know that?" Barry's eyes flashed, and his lips thinned as he pressed them together. He took a deep breath, and let it out again slowly. "Look, there's an easy way to prove this. Flash is fast, but he's not faster than light. He can't avoid cameras entirely, even if it's only a streak too fast to see at normal speed playback."

"True." Len had cause to be grateful for the fact that the speedster moved too fast to see except in a playback - otherwise precinct security would have realized long ago how often the thief came and went from their homicide lieutenant's office. Wouldn't _that_ raise some awkward questions, especially in the face of this investigation.

"I don't want to cause a panic - or worse, let this get out to the press." He drummed his fingers on the table top. "Barry, I want you to keep quiet about this. Don't tell anyone about the heart. I'll have to see if one of the security guards is someone I trust to keep things on the down low..."

"No need." Barry flung himself into his chair, rolling it across the room to a computer terminal, where he typed quickly. "I've got the feed patched through here. I can run it back, no problem."

Coming to stand beside him, Len frowned at the younger man. "Barry, _why_ do you have access to our security feeds?"

"Um." Barry stopped typing, but kept his eyes fastened on the keyboard. His shoulders hunched like he was expecting a blow, and his cheeks flushed a dull pink. "No reason?"

"You're a terrible liar." Len put a hand on one of those tense shoulders and squeezed gently. He could feel the warmth of the kid's body through his thin gloves. 

"Actually, you'd be surprised." Barry sounded both wry and amused. "I just suck at lying about certain things. I got permission from Captain Singh to have access to the security videos because..."

He paused, and any amusement fled, replaced by shame. Len recognized the expression because he'd seen it on Barry before, years ago when the then-teenager had told him the truth about his miserable family life. What could put that look on his face now? "Whatever it is, Barry, it's all right. You know you can tell me anything."

Sighing, Barry lifted his hand to place it over Len's on his shoulder, squeezing back as a thank-you for the support. "I know I can. I've always known that. I asked for the feed so I could check to see if... certain people... had left for the day yet or were lingering somewhere."

Chills ran down Len's spine in a way that had nothing to do with his powers. He could read between the lines - Barry wanted to know where people were because they might be lying in wait for him. 

"Has someone been hurting you?" Len had fought to get Barry hired here, and there _were_ people who had come to see that Barry worked twice as hard as the rest of them to solve crimes, because of his history. Thankfully, Captain Singh was one of them.

There were many others who had never bothered to get over their prejudices, but he hadn't thought it had gone beyond nasty comments.

"It's not like they've been beating me up," Barry assured him hastily. "They're cops, they're not stupid enough to assault me in plain view of the precinct, and they're not going to put in the effort to follow me home. There were a few in the beginning who made my life miserable to see if they could chase me off. They've given up, I haven't bothered looking at the feeds in ages."

That made Len feel somewhat better, though he was still far from happy. "Why didn't you come to me?"

Pushing his chair away from the desk, Barry stood and turned to face him. It broke the physical connection between them, and Len's chest ached at the unhappy but fiercely determined expression Barry wore. 

"Len, I can't lean on you forever," Barry said, his hands cutting short, choppy arcs through the air as he spoke, emphasizing his words. "I'm an adult now, not a scared kid. I have to be able to stand on my own two feet. If I can't, what happens some day when you're not there? When you've retired, or - god forbid - if you're injured in the line of duty? I don't want your protection any more. I want your respect."

"I've always respected you," Len protested, stunned by the unexpected onslaught of emotion from Barry, who was usually reserved. "You have more strength of character than most three other men, and the courage it took for you to do what was needed to put your dad behind bars is incredible. I know the challenges you face, and you've overcome more than anyone should be expected to."

Barry bit his lip, and looked away. "Thanks. That means a lot. But you still see me as someone who _should_ be running to you when there's a problem. Don't get me wrong, I'm incredibly grateful for everything you've done for me, and I don't think I would have made it if you hadn't been there to support me for so long. I just..." He shook his head, and ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "I want you to see me as the adult I am. Not the kid I used to be."

For a long moment Len absorbed that. He supposed he could see the kid's point. Hell, just the fact that he thought of him as 'the kid' proved Barry wasn't wrong. 

Perhaps seeing that he was getting through, Barry gave him a crooked smile. "Someday, I'd like it if you'd tell me _your_ problems, instead of always asking about mine. I think that's the thing that really gets me. You don't rely on me like I do on you, and that makes it feel..."

"Unequal?" Len suggested, with an equally wry smile in return. "I'll think about it, I promise. If it makes you feel any better, you're about the same age Lisa was when she finally rubbed my nose in the fact that she wasn't my 'baby sister in need of protection' anymore."

That startled Barry into a more genuine, if brief, laugh. "Yeah, I can picture that. Good to know there's still hope."

Not that Len could confide in _anybody_ these days. Lisa knew about his powers, since he'd nearly killed her by accident when he first got them, but as an Assistant District Attorney she was in a tough position. She needed plausible deniability, and that meant he couldn't discuss any aspect of his persona as Captain Cold with her. 

Likewise his old partner, Joe West. Joe was a good man, a damn good cop, and Len wouldn’t put him in the position of being an accessory. He'd thought about talking to Mick, but his best friend was... unpredictable at times. Without knowing what Mick’s reaction would be, Len didn't feel he could risk it.

And Barry... well, it was true that he'd been thinking of Barry as 'too young to handle it'. Maybe that wasn't the case anymore, but it didn't mean he should be dragging the kid - young man - into the mess Len had made of his life, trying to be a hero.

And speaking of his job as a hero, his work day was only getting started. "So, since we can see the video without needing to involve anyone else, what can you show me from this morning?"

"Right." Barry flushed again, and rubbed at his nose. "Sorry, I shouldn't be letting personal stuff distract me. Or you.”

“I’ve always got time for you,” Len assured him. “Let's see what we've got."

Barry took his seat and started typing again, all his focus now on the computer. "The camera's in the hall, it doesn't show the lab itself. I'm running it backward from when we came into the room, because we know whoever it was must have been here between that, and me leaving."

Leaning over Barry's shoulder, Len watched the video intently. Various officers and detectives wandered by, their movements ponderous in slow motion, but none of them detoured into the lab. Long minutes passed as the video crawled along, but they needed it to be as slow as possible in case it _was_ the Flash.

Despite all the evidence, Len found himself hoping that Barry was right and this was the work of an as-yet-unknown metahuman. He didn't want to believe he’d been flirting with a killer.

Then a bolt of lightning entered the frame. Even at the video's slowest possible speed, the Flash was little more than a blur and a swirl of light. There was no chance of making out any details beyond the fact that it was a human, but Len didn't need to know more. Only one person in the world could move that fast.

"It's him." Len's grip tightened on the back of Barry's chair as his breath hissed out between clenched teeth. So much for hope. Something crackled beneath his fingers, and he yanked his hand off the chair before the frost could spread far enough for Barry to notice.

"No! I didn't..." Barry choked in shock, and swallowed hard. "This is... someone is trying to set him up. It has to be."

Len wasn't sure where Barry's hero-worship of the thief came from, but he knew the younger man wasn't alone in his admiration. Flash even had his own action figure, ridiculous as that seemed to Len. Whatever illusions Barry might hold about the thief were being thoroughly shattered, and he understood the instinctive denial.

"You know that's not possible." Len shook his head, wishing he could choose to disbelieve, too. "There is no other explanation. The Flash just became Public Enemy Number One."

And earned himself a promotion from 'nemesis' to 'enemy' of Captain Cold. Len would _not_ let the metahuman get away with killing in his city.


	4. Chapter 4

For more than a week, Barry agonized over what he should do. Len was fixated on the idea that the Flash was the killer, and nothing Barry could offer as an argument convinced him otherwise.

Why would it? As far as Len knew, the closest Barry had ever come to the Flash was processing the thief's crime scenes. In fact, Barry had never even done that - he made sure to pull heists in places outside his precinct's jurisdiction, or on nights when he was off work for a day or two, so that he wouldn't be the one tapped for the job. He ended up running tests on his own evidence sometimes, but that was hardly a compelling reason for Len to believe Barry had any insight into the lightning thief's motives.

Worse, he still couldn't figure out how the hell someone had not only gotten the heart into and out of his lab, but how they'd faked the Flash on camera. It shouldn't have been possible, not without the kind of CGI editing that couldn't be done in real time. Nobody would have had a chance to mess with the security videos in the five minutes or so before Barry looked at them.

Metahuman powers didn't seem to duplicate. There had only been one known case of extremely similar powers, and the metas in question were brothers who'd been together when the blast from STAR Labs hit. Besides, if there was actually another speedster out there, _surely_ the Flash would have encountered the man, or at least heard about it.

Somebody was setting the Flash up to take the fall for a murder, but why? And _how_?

Unsurprisingly, there were no other leads on the Wilson case. Len was taking point on it personally, as the officer who’d discovered the body. Joe was helping, and Len had told his former partner about the heart and the security video, but nobody else in the station knew the whole story.

In fact, Joe was missing vital information as well, unless Len had finally told his old friend the truth about being Captain Cold. And of course, Len had no idea that Barry knew the full circumstances surrounding Cold and Flash's involvement with the body.

Desperate for suggestions, Barry made a run out to STAR Labs on his next day off. He blasted into the Cortex and skidded to a halt, making Caitlin yelp and scramble to grab the papers that blew away from her.

"I really wish you wouldn't do that, Mr. Allen," she scolded, giving him a sour look. "All you have to do is walk through the last hallway at a normal pace, would that be so difficult?"

"But then I wouldn't get to see you flustered," he teased her. "It's my only payback for all the poking and prodding."

"If you'll recall, the poking and prodding is _your_ payment for us not turning you in to the police." Caitlin tapped the stack of papers to straighten them, then put them back in place on the desk. "You do have good timing. Cisco has a new prototype he wants you to test."

"Are you coming? I need your help with something as well."

"I'll meet you in the speed lab," she agreed. "Just please don't..."

Ignoring the protest he knew she was about to make, Barry ran out of the Cortex, laughing as he saw the papers scatter again. Caitlin's uptight manner always made him want to poke at her, and while he understood her disdain for him as a criminal, it also irritated him. Nobody was forcing her to keep his secret, she was doing it for the advancement of her own goals.

Cisco was in the speed lab, making adjustments to one of the pieces of monitoring equipment he'd rigged up. Barry did a few laps on the track for the sheer joy of running. Cisco and Caitlin had built this whole room for the sole purpose of studying him and his powers. The track was laced with various sensors and detectors, tracking his speed, body motions, vital signs, and anything else they could think of.

Oddly, getting caught breaking into STAR Labs might have been the best thing that had happened to Barry since he’d gotten his powers. It had been his very first target as the Flash, back when his speed was still weak and unpredictable. He’d expected the building to be empty and abandoned, hadn’t been smart enough to do a recon.

It had been easy for Cisco to get the drop on him. The sedative in the dart gun the engineer had used on him ran through his system in minutes, but minutes was all they’d needed to get him trussed up like a turkey on Thanksgiving. That was long before he learned how to vibrate through solid objects, so once they had him, he’d been trapped.

Thankfully, they’d listened to his explanation, and felt some sympathy for him. Barry had been literally starving because of his drastically increased metabolism, desperate for food money, and he’d figured nobody would miss anything he took from the ‘defunct’ STAR Labs.

That was when they’d offered him a deal. _They_ were equally desperate for metahuman test subjects. The two of them were all that was left of STAR Labs, the only survivors of the explosion. They’d stayed because they felt an obligation to try to right the wrongs that their creation had caused. But without anyone to study, their efforts to understand metahumans were going nowhere.

In exchange for not turning him in, Barry let them run whatever experiments they wanted. They were the ones who’d helped him gain control over his powers, and they were still exploring the full extent of what he could do. Caitlin had developed some extremely high-nutrient bars to help him stay healthy despite the increased needs of his new body. Cisco was the one who made the friction-free suit to streamline the experiments and stop Barry from catching on fire when he ran.

Of course, they hadn’t been terribly happy when they found out he was still stealing - and using their suit and training to do it - but they’d apparently decided they needed him too much to break their deal.

Figuring he’d given Cisco enough time to realize he was there, Barry left the enclosed track and slid to a halt in the central area. "Hey. Caitlin said you had something for me?"

"Barry! Hey, yeah, I think I've finally got the dampening field glitch sorted out." Cisco bounced to his feet, grinning. The engineer was less standoffish than the doctor, despite his equal disapproval of how Barry chose to use his powers. Cisco was enough of a geek to be thrilled by the chance to study a metahuman up close, regardless of who that meta was. Caitlin saw it as a necessary evil.

"Show me what you've got." Barry held out his hand, and Cisco slapped a bracelet around his wrist. It looked like a sci-fi writer's idea of futuristic jewellery, lit up with glowing circuits traced into the silvery metal. This month's attempt shone a soft, icy blue that reminded Barry of the rare times he’d seen Len's eyes when Captain Cold used his powers.

As soon as it closed around his arm, a smothering blanket seemed to descend on Barry. He felt sluggish and listless, his heartbeat slowing as energy drained out of him. It was a horrible sensation, and even though he knew it was probably no worse than how he'd felt all the time before getting his powers, now it seemed like torture.

"His metabolism is slowing!" Caitlin exclaimed, staring at the data pad in her hands as she entered the speed lab. "It's at about half his usual parameters."

Only half? Barry would have sworn he was now slower than a normal person. Grimacing, he shook himself to try to ease the uncomfortable feeling. "It's not pleasant, I can tell you that."

"Damn it, your powers _should_ be suppressed completely." Cisco typed at a keyboard, the sharp staccato sound conveying his displeasure. "It's still not working properly, and I don't understand why."

"It's working a lot better than the last one," Barry tried to soothe him. "At least you know you're on the right track!"

"Speaking of tracks, can you please do a few laps?" Caitlin gestured at the enclosed pathway above. "Try to go as fast as you can, I want to see if the dampening field causes any adverse effects on your body when you attempt to fight it."

"First you want me to go slow, now you want me to go fast," Barry laughed, picking up the earbud that would let him communicate with them while he was on the move. "Make up your mind, will you?"

He took off running, but for the first time since he'd woken up from the lightning strike, it required significant effort. He had to push for speed, and he could tell he wasn't moving anywhere near as fast as usual. His breathing grew laboured, and he could feel the strain in his muscles. "Wow, okay, this _really_ sucks."

"Keep going," Cisco ordered. "I'm gonna see if increasing the power output helps slow you further."

There was a bright surge of light from the bracelet. "Yeah, that’s a lot worse," Barry complained. "But, uh, the cuff is heating up. Is it supposed to do that?"

"What? No, it shouldn't be..."

"Barry!" Caitlin broke in, her voice high and frantic. "Take it off, now!"

Since the metal was rapidly growing hot enough to burn, Barry was more than happy to follow her command. He stripped it off and tossed the bracelet away from him, hissing as it scorched his fingers.

He'd barely taken three steps before the bracelet exploded, shrapnel flying everywhere. Time seemed to slow as his speed flooded through him once more, and Barry watched in fascination as the sharp metal fragments hung in the air, moving at a slug's pace. He'd dodged bullets this way a few times, and the effect never ceased to awe and amaze him.

With his powers back to full strength, he was able to evade the shrapnel with ease. The sound of the explosion still echoed in the lab as he skidded to a halt in front of Cisco and Caitlin, slightly out of breath.

"It _did_ work," he said in response to Cisco's glum expression. "You're making progress."

"Kind of. They still need to be calibrated to a specific meta's powers." The engineer tapped a pen against the desk in a rapid beat of frustration. "The more data we get on your abilities, the better I can make the dampening effect work, but that's not going to help create a general restraining field. Putting yours on a different meta would barely do anything. If we could catch the bad guy metas to study them, we wouldn't need the cuffs in the first place."

"They overloaded as Mr. Allen tried to access more of his power," Caitlin said, studying the readout on her pad. "The output started oscillating wildly, then short circuited. We need to find a stabilizing algorithm of some kind. At least it didn't seem to put any stress on his body, despite the fluctuations."

"Aw, you called me Barry a minute ago," he ribbed her. "I thought I was finally breaking through that icy shell of yours, Dr. Snow."

"I assure you, Mr. Allen, I used your given name only for the sake of expediency." She gave him the stink-eye. "It's shorter, and you were more likely to respond quickly that way."

"Uh-huh, keep telling yourself that." Barry grinned, and leaned against the monitoring equipment. 

She sniffed derisively, something he'd only seen people do on TV before he met her. "Didn't you say you had something you wanted to discuss with us?"

Reminded of his untenable situation, Barry sobered. "Yeah. I dunno if you guys have heard about it, they're doing everything they can to keep it out of the news..."

He quickly filled them in on the murder, from the moment he'd first discovered the body, to finding the heart in his lab and then having it disappear, to Len's grim certainty that the Flash was at fault. By the time he was done Cisco looked like he might be ill, and Caitlin had a hand over her mouth in horror.

"It's _not me_ ," Barry concluded, just in case they had any doubts. "But I don't know how to get Len to stop chasing a red herring and start looking for the real killer."

"We know it's not you, Barry," Cisco assured him, for once solemn. "You wouldn't do that."

"I don't approve of your larcenous habits, but you're no killer," Caitlin unbent enough to agree, surprising Barry. "If you were, I don't care how valuable your help is with these experiments, we wouldn't be working with you."

"Thanks, guys." It meant more to Barry than he'd expected that they believed him. Under different circumstances, in another world, he thought he might have even been friends with them, especially Cisco. "So how do I convince Len of the same thing?"

"Well, we believe you because we know you're _you_." Cisco shrugged, spreading his hands. "Sounds like the dude knows you - you as Barry, I mean - pretty well, so I guess telling him your identity would probably convince him."

Grimacing, Barry ran a hand through his hair. It was sweaty from the effort of running through the dampening field, something that hadn't happened to him in a long time. "That would probably get him looking elsewhere for the killer, but it would also get me dumped in jail. Len is _not_ the kind of cop who will look the other way just because the criminal in question is a friend or family member."

And that was aside from the fact that Captain Cold would do just about anything to arrest the Flash. He hadn't told Cisco and Caitlin the hero's identity, hadn't let on that he even knew it. What he'd told Len on the Rathaway Industries roof was still true - the city needed Captain Cold where he was, doing what he was doing, and that meant keeping his secrets.

"Technically, jail _is_ where you belong," Caitlin murmured, frowning at him. 

He grinned back at her, unable to resist. "Then who would you test your prototypes on? C'mon, Caitlin, admit it. You need me. You even like me, a little. Or you'd have turned me in a year ago."

"What's the point? You'd walk through the wall and run off, anyway." Caitlin arched an eyebrow. "Once we have a working dampening field, we won't need you _and_ the police will be able to hold you."

"I guess we'll find out then." Barry shrugged, unconcerned. He'd insisted they make the dampening cuffs easily removable for exactly that reason, so they couldn't trap him when they did finally get the results they wanted. "Any other ideas about convincing Len?"

Caitlin and Cisco exchanged a look. Cisco shrugged, and Caitlin shook her head. Barry was disappointed, but not really surprised. He'd hoped that maybe the two smartest people he knew could come up with a solution he'd missed, but they weren't miracle-workers. And a miracle was what it would take.

"If you think of anything later, you've got my number." Barry popped the earbud out and placed it on the desk. "Otherwise, I guess I'll see you on my next day off?"

"Might as well make it a couple of weeks," Cisco said, poking glumly at the monitors showing the data they'd gathered from this run. "It's gonna take me a while to debug the code and figure out where we went wrong."

"Do you have enough protein bars?" Caitlin asked. She tried to play it off as nothing but professional concern as a doctor, but Barry thought she cared more than she let on.

"I'm good for now, might have to swing by if it takes more than a week or two before you need me again." Barry smiled, less teasing and more grateful this time. They'd saved his life, not once but several times over, in various ways. Without them, he'd be in a lot worse shape than he was.

Like Len, like Lisa and Joe, they helped to remind him that not everyone was solely out for number one. That some people could see past the surface of the world and the facade that everyone put up to protect themselves. That there were actually those in the world who would help others purely for the satisfaction of knowing they were doing the right thing.

Barry didn't think he'd ever understand that mentality. The world at large had never done a damned thing for him, so why should he go out of his way for them?

In fact, plenty of people had deliberately _refused_ to help him, ignoring the signs of abuse because they didn’t want to get involved, or accepting his father’s bribes to stay quiet about it. Even more had turned against Barry as an adult, judging him as worthless for no reason other than his father’s actions.

Still, it was good to remember that people like Len and the others existed. It helped keep Barry from sliding over the invisible line from selfish to hurtful, the way his father had done long before Henry Allen became a killer.

Now he just had to figure out how to keep the most important of those people in his life from believing that Barry _was_ a killer like his father.


	5. Chapter 5

As he left STAR Labs, it occurred to Barry that he might be approaching things at the wrong angle. There was nothing Barry Allen could say to convince Leonard Snart that he was chasing his tail and after the wrong man.

Maybe, just maybe, the Flash could make Captain Cold listen directly.

Finding the hero shouldn't be too difficult. Barry put on his Flash suit and zipped through the city at random, running as fast as he could to savour the way energy poured through him when he used his powers. He'd almost started to take the sensation for granted, until that cuff had momentarily returned him to something resembling 'normal'.

Eventually he felt a shift in the wind and a sudden blast of cold air. Turning, he ran up the side of the nearest building, and reached the top to discover Cold fighting the Weather Wizard only two rooftops away.

Mark Mardon was one of the city's most dangerous metahumans. The cops had _no_ way of handling him, he was simply too powerful. Len could take him on, mostly because Mardon's favourite attacks involved blasting hail or freezing wind at his enemy and Cold was immune, but Cold's ice powers couldn't hurt Weather Wizard, either.

It was a stalemate at best, and every story Barry had heard said all Len had managed was to chase Mardon off from his attempted crimes. There was no catching the man, no hope of holding him long enough to sedate him so he couldn't use his powers.

At the moment, it didn't look like the battle was going well for Captain Cold. Apparently it had finally occurred to Weather Wizard that manipulating wind meant he could fly, and Mardon was staying well out of Len's range. Worse, he was blasting lighting at Len instead of hail, each strike chipping away at the ice shields Cold hastily raised.

Barry eyeballed the distance. Mardon was damn high, and Barry didn’t have super strength of any kind to help him jump, but people underestimated how powerful a force momentum could be. He jumped to the next roof, circled it a few times to gain speed, then launched himself off the edge, aiming for Weather Wizard hovering above.

He slammed into Mardon, who seemed to his eyes to be hanging motionless in the air. They tumbled together down to the roof Len was on, skidding across the asphalt.

Caught completely by surprise, Mardon flailed and tried to throw a lightning bolt at him. Barry sidestepped it and ran in a tight circle, once again building speed and gathering kinetic energy. When he came to an abrupt halt, all that energy blasted past him in the form of his own lightning bolt, and it struck Mardon squarely in the chest.

Weather Wizard collapsed, groaning, and went still. Barry dropped back into normal speed, feeling rather pleased with himself. He wasn't a fighter by nature, his skirmishes with Cold notwithstanding, but he had to admit there was a certain satisfaction in being the one to step in and save Len, for a change.

Then a wall of ice smashed into him, driving him down to the rooftop and rapidly spreading over him, trying to pin him in place. It ached everywhere the ice touched, a cold so deep and sharp that it burned.

Cursing himself for an idiot, Barry threw every bit of speed he had into vibrating himself, creating friction to melt the ice and help him break through. As soon as he was free he zipped to the other side of the roof so he could pause and get his bearings.

Cold was motionless about twenty feet away, arms extended to where Barry had been. It was hard to tell if his scowl was pure concentration, or if he had started to realize that the Flash had already escaped him. 

Either way, if Barry slowed down enough to talk to him properly, Cold was going to keep attacking him. In the excitement of the battle with Mardon, Barry had forgotten that Len now believed the Flash was a dangerous killer. Cold would stop at _nothing_ to bring him down, and it would make his prior attempts to catch the Flash look like romantic overtures.

If he wanted Len to listen to the Flash, Barry was going to have to force the issue. 

Crossing the distance between them, Barry grabbed Len's wrist and jerked it behind the man's back, twisting it up and around so his arm was in a painfully awkward position. Ironically, it was a hold Len himself had taught Barry, part of the self-defense lessons the man had given him as a teenager.

When he was certain he had a firm grip, Barry dropped back to normal speed. Len struggled wildly, but he had a very limited range of movement unless he wanted to dislocate his own shoulder.

Of course, nothing was stopping Cold from using his powers, and Barry hissed in pain as ice shot up his arm from where he held Len's wrist. If Len hadn't already exhausted himself against Weather Wizard, Barry would probably have been solidly encased in moments.

"Damn it, Cold, I'm not trying to hurt you. I just want to talk!" he exclaimed, keeping his face blurred so his voice would be distorted.

"I have nothing to say to a murdering bastard," Len growled, not letting up on the ice. Cursing, Barry vibrated himself free of it, careful not to lose his grip. 

"Yeah, I heard the city's finest has me on the Most Wanted list. That's _why_ I want to talk. What the hell do they think I did?" Barry had to be very careful not to let on that he knew more about the investigation than he should, or it would only make Len all the more convinced that the Flash was involved. 

"Don't try to sell the innocent act with me." Len turned his head to glare over his shoulder. At least, Barry assumed he was glaring - it was hard to see his eyes through the snow visor goggles the man wore as a mask. "I'm not buying any more."

"Come on, I returned your coat and everything," he wheedled, trying to tease the way he normally would have. It was hard to find the right carefree note when he was so acutely aware of everything riding on this conversation. "What'd I do to piss you off so bad? That data I stole from Rathaway wasn't even that important, relatively speaking."

"You know exactly what you did."

Barry snorted. "Oh, give me a break. Are you really going to pull the passive-aggressive thing with me? Am I supposed to list everything I've ever done wrong to try to find the right one, thereby giving you even more ammunition than you already had?"

"You killed that woman, and you're playing headgames with a boy under _my_ protection,” Len seemed not in the least amused by Barry’s attempt at banter. “I don't know if you realize _how_ badly you're fucking with him, but frankly I don't care because I'm going to take you down regardless. Is that clear enough for you?"

A 'boy'? Seriously? Barry bit back a groan. After their talk the day the heart did its disappearing act, he'd thought maybe he'd finally gotten through to Len. Apparently not.

God, he almost wished he dared reveal himself just to see the look on Len's face when he realized that the man he'd been flirting with for the better part of a year was none other than the 'boy' he kept trying to coddle.

"Look, I'm going to let you go, and you're going to turn around and _not_ try to freeze me, so we can discuss this like civilized people. How's that sound?"

Len stilled in his grasp. Barry could almost see him running the possible scenarios through his head, trying to find the trick in the suggestion. It would mean Cold would lose contact with Flash, thereby limiting his ability to keep using his powers - but those powers weren't doing enough to stop Barry, anyway.

"Fine," Len gritted out. "Let's talk."

Not entirely trusting the cease-fire, Barry released him, wrenched free of the ice, and put several feet between them before Len could blink. He came around to Len's front rather than making the man turn, mostly because he was too impatient to wait that long.

"All right, listen," Barry said, when they were standing a safe distance apart and it seemed like Len was grudgingly paying attention. "You didn't think I killed that girl the night we found her. Why would you think so now? And I don’t know anything about a boy. The only person I play games with is _you_ , Cold." He tried for his usual flirtatious smile. "Are you mad because you think I'm cheating on you?"

Sadly, the attempt at humour fell completely flat. Len crossed his arms, parka rustling, and continued scowling. "I know it was you, Flash. You were caught on camera at the station, entering and leaving the CSI lab with the girl's heart."

"With the girl's _heart_? Why would I have her heart? I thought she died of a drug overdose?" Barry hoped he was getting the right mix of incredulous and shocked, or something close to it. Len was an excellent detective, and he specialized in catching inconsistencies when interrogating suspects. That was how he'd first realized there was something wrong with Barry's home life, when Barry had been caught shoplifting.

He must have done something right, because Len's scowl was shifting into a frown. Not much of an improvement, but it was something. "I saw you on camera," Len repeated.

"You saw something you thought was me," Barry corrected him. "I don't kill. I don't hurt people. Isn't that why you're willing to play with me?"

Len looked pointedly at Weather Wizard passed out on the ground. Despite himself, Barry laughed. "Oh, come on. He's fine, and I didn't do anything you wouldn't have if you'd had the chance." To prove his point, he kicked the unconscious man's foot. Mardon groaned but didn't wake.

"Since when can you throw lightning, anyway?" Len sounded grudgingly impressed.

"It's a new trick I picked up." Barry smirked. Cisco had helped him develop the ability as part of the engineer's attempt to understand how the Flash's powers worked. "I think it will come in handy for frying electronic security systems. Given the way _he_ was tossing it around, I figured it wouldn't hurt him badly. You've been chasing him for months, I just handed him to you on a silver platter, and you're accusing me of being a killer for it?"

"I've been chasing you for months, too." Len flexed his hands with a smirk of his own, frost dancing over his fingers. "How about you give me _you_ on a silver platter. Having you in jail will do an excellent job of convincing me you're not my killer."

"Giving myself to you, I would happily do," Barry assured him with a wistful sigh. How many times had he fantasized ways to do exactly that? "Jail, not so much. I have a delicate constitution, I don't think the slammer would suit me."

"Funny." Len's smirk kicked up a notch. "I think prison stripes would be flattering on you. Your ass would look fantastic."

The return flirting was reflexive, and Barry could see the moment the man realized he'd done it. Len's lip curled, turning the smirk into a snarl, and he was undoubtedly scolding himself for coming on to a killer.

Trying a different tactic, Barry spread his hands as if to show he was unarmed. "If I was the murderer, why would I come to you today?"

"Headgames, like I said." Len's scowl deepened. "Why _else_ would you come to me today? You're trying to throw me off the trail."

"Seriously?" Barry stared at him. "You can't think of any reason I might care that the entire CCPD thinks I’m a killer? Or, more importantly, what your opinion of me is?" 

Tired of dancing around it, Barry closed the distance between them. He moved fast enough to catch the man by surprise, but not so fast Len wouldn't see him coming, and crowded Len up against the wall of the roof entrance. 

Growling, Len brought his hands up with ice crackling between his fingers. Before he could make contact, Barry leaned in and finally fulfilled a fantasy he'd been cherishing for more than a decade. He pressed their lips together, hard enough to show he meant it, gentle enough to entice the other man to respond, and wholeheartedly invested in the kiss.

Len went stiff, then, to Barry's utter delight, the older man melted into the embrace. For one long, glorious moment, he clutched at Barry's shoulders and kissed back. He tasted of frost and winter, and his lips were ice cold against Barry's, but the heat they generated between them was all too real.

Then Len shoved at him, hard enough to topple Barry. Ice crackled between them, spreading in fractal patterns like a living thing, and in seconds Barry was pinned to the rooftop again. He was panting, he realized, like some idiot kid who didn't know enough to breathe while making out. 

Len looked almost as flustered as Barry felt, with a dusting of red across his cheeks that Barry was gratified to see. "What the _fuck_ , Flash?"

Giddy with the culmination of a dream he'd had for half his life, Barry laughed despite the burn of the ice. "Oh, please. Are you really going to tell me that you didn't want that as much as I did? If so, I'll apologize. Sincerely. I would _never_ force anyone."

'Just like I'd never hurt anyone,' hung unspoken between them.

"Did you think trying to seduce me would somehow convince me of your innocence?" Len growled, eyes narrowed. "What was that supposed to prove?"

"That I have a reason to want you not to hate me." Barry grinned up at him. Len hadn't acknowledged that he'd wanted the kiss, but he hadn't denied it. Silence meant he couldn't bring himself to admit the truth, yet he hadn't lied either. In Barry's books, that was as good as an admission.

"Well, aren't you two sickeningly sweet?"

The intrusion was so unexpected, it took Barry a moment to realize what was happening. Mardon was on his knees - weaving like he was dizzy, but up and mobile. And, judging by the lightning gathering around his hands, he was recovered enough to use his powers.

Barry's heart kicked into overdrive as speed poured through him, but the reaction felt as sluggish as when he'd been wearing the dampening cuff. Len had slammed Barry with his powers several times in the last few minutes, and cold was the antithesis of speed. Each hit had slowed him down, and now he was going to pay for it.

Worse, Len had obviously exhausted himself with that last burst. He turned in painfully slow motion to face the Weather Wizard, hands coming up as if to form another shield, but only a thin layer of frost rimmed his hands.

Mardon's hands were moving, a slo-mo tossing motion toward Len that would send the lightning to strike. Barry didn't have time to vibrate enough to melt the ice and break through. He struggled to find exactly the right frequency to let him sync with the ice and pass through it, but moving through solid objects was a _lot_ harder than generating heat.

Fear was a powerful motivator. As the lightning left Weather Wizard's hands, Barry finally got the speed right and phased through the ice as if it wasn't there. He scrambled to his feet and launched into a tackle.

Ordinarily, he could outrun lightning. That made it all the more painful to see that this time, he wouldn’t be fast enough.

It was a photo finish whether the bolt reached Len first, or Barry did. His impact did move Len enough that the strike hit the man's shoulder and not his chest, where it could have stopped his heart. Instead it travelled down Len's arm and slammed into Barry, grounding itself through _him_.

Barry cried out in pain, and collapsed to his hands and knees. His body was already strained from trying to combat all the frostburn, and the cold-induced sluggishness meant his healing was slower than usual, too. He was at near-normal speed now, and his powers refused to respond further.

Certain he was about to get a second blast, Barry forced himself to his feet. He would _not_ die on his hands and knees. He wouldn't submit to Mardon, wouldn't give the bastard the satisfaction. After his father went to jail, Barry had sworn to himself that he would never crawl for anyone ever again.

Except the next bolt never came. 

Mardon collapsed, apparently done in by using his powers while he was injured. Unable to believe it was really over, Barry staggered to Weather Wizard's side and crouched next to him, cautiously reaching out to prod the man's shoulder. Mardon didn't react, even when Barry shook him hard. He was definitely out for the count.

Heart in his throat, Barry scrambled over to Len's side. If his chest was moving, Barry couldn't see it. In the course of his job Barry had seen far more dead bodies than any one person ever should, and Len had that same impossible stillness to him.

Frantic, Barry stripped his gloves off and searched for Len's pulse with a shaking hand. There was nothing, only cold, unresponsive flesh. Cursing, he fumbled with the parka's zipper and finally wrenched it down, spreading the heavy coat open. Shifting to a better position for leverage, Barry put both his hands over Len's heart, ready to start CPR.

And felt a solid, slow thump under his fingers.

Just one, a solitary beat, but Barry managed a shaky laugh as he realized what was happening. Panic had triggered some final, untapped reserve of his powers. Len wasn't motionless at all, it was only that Barry was moving so fast that Len's breath hadn't had a chance to lift his chest yet.

Sinking down to sit beside Len, Barry continued to laugh helplessly. He was trembling from the adrenaline rush of the scare, so he wrapped his arms around his knees and held tight. 

Len was alive, thank god. Badly injured, judging by the burn hole in his parka, but alive.

Now what the hell was Barry going to do with him?


	6. Chapter 6

Everything was hazy. The world was blurred beyond recognition, his head pounded like a jackhammer on steroids, and he was _hot_. God, he was so damned hot. Someone had jammed a furnace into his shoulder to melt him from the inside out, then shoved him into an oven to roast from the outside in. He groaned and stirred, tried to get away from the pain and the heat, but his limbs refused to respond properly.

"Stay still. You're hurt."

The voice was blurry too, but felt familiar. Dangerously familiar. Alarms blared in the back of his mind, but he couldn't hold on to any one thought long enough to remember why. He tried again to struggle, to force his way to reality.

"Damn it, Len! I said stay still. I don't want to drop you."

Len. That was him. Len was his name. The reminder helped him find a few more pieces of himself. He was Leonard Snart. He was also Captain Cold. He'd been... he'd been fighting. Mark Mardon, a.k.a. the Weather Wizard. And then...

And then the Flash had shown up. That was who the voice belonged to.

With a wrenching effort Len forced himself fully conscious. His body screamed at him, dangerously overheated, and the spike of agony in his shoulder suggested there was a serious wound there. The world was still blurred, but it wasn't his eyes - the Flash had him slung into a fireman's carry and was running.

"Where..." Len's voice cracked, and the rest of the words refused to come out.

Flash seemed to understand, regardless. "I'm taking you home, but I can't go too fast. The friction of the air creates heat and you're almost normal temperature already. I'm assuming that's not good, for you."

This wasn't fast? 

Actually, it did seem like there wasn't as much insane speed as the last time Flash had carried him. Though they'd also been falling down the side of a building, so maybe that had contributed to the sensation.

Realizing his thoughts were wandering again, Len grunted and struggled to gather them. He'd been injured. Weather Wizard had caught him by surprise with a lightning bolt, he remembered now. Something had struck him in the side at the same time - Flash? An attack? Or trying to push him out of the way?

"We're here."

The world snapped back into focus as they skidded to a halt. Still dizzy, it took Len a moment to recognize the pattern of white tiles and frosted glass on the wall he was facing. They were standing in his bathroom.

With a huff of effort Flash heaved Len off his shoulders and into the old clawfoot tub. The ceramic was blessedly cool against his cheek, and Len groaned as he shifted to press more of his face against it.

A whirl of movement spun him around, like when Flash had stripped his jacket but worse, hands all over him. Len would have complained, except finding himself abruptly wearing nothing but boxers also meant he had more contact with the chill of the tub.

The faucet squeaked, and cold water gushed over his feet. Anyone else would have been shivering in seconds, but for Len it was a sensation of pure relief.

He turned his head, the movement sluggish and uncoordinated, to see Flash holding a phone and typing on the screen. _Len’s_ phone, in fact. He tried to muster enough energy to be angry at the invasion. "Hey..."

"Help is on the way." Flash dropped the phone onto the discarded parka, then reached out and brushed his ungloved hand over Len's forehead. "Your temperature's dropping. I think you'll be okay. I'm sorry I wasn't fast enough to stop him from hitting you."

It felt like Len was playing catch-up. His mind was still back on that rooftop, and he couldn't quite piece together what was happening. Shock, he vaguely recognized. Training nudged at him. You were supposed to keep someone warm if they went into shock.

Yeah, that probably wouldn't help him much. An ice bath would do more good. His powers were too drained to make ice, but the cold water was the next best thing.

He blinked, and realized Flash had vanished. Len wasn't sure if he'd drifted off in a daze, or if the thief had simply blasted out without saying anything further. The tub was half full, so it was probably a combination of both.

The doorbell rang, three times in a row like the person was jabbing at the button. Help was coming, the Flash had said. Had the thief called a damn ambulance? Didn't he realize that would out Len as Captain Cold?

Sharp knocking followed when the doorbell didn't get an answer. A moment later, he heard the front door swing open, and a familiar voice called out. "Len? Is everything okay? The door’s unlocked. Where are you?"

Barry? The Flash had texted Barry Allen, of all people, to come and help him? That was better than EMTs, but only marginally. Desperate to stave off disaster, Len struggled to raise his voice enough to be heard. "Everything's fine, but I'm in the bath, Barry. Don't come in!"

In direct defiance of the order, the bathroom door swung open and Barry poked his head through. "Then why did you text me an SOS... oh my god!" His eyes widened as he got a good look at Len. "What happened?"

Following his gaze, Len looked down and saw the burn on his shoulder where the lightning bolt had made contact. It was strangely beautiful, a feathery fractal spreading down his arm, the pattern not unlike one formed by frost.

Well, that certainly explained how he'd gotten so badly overheated, as well as the pulsing stabs of agony on that side of his body. So much for trying to convince Barry that nothing was wrong.

"Hold still," Barry scolded him, falling to his knees at the side of the tub. "Let me get a good look at it... holy _crap_ that's cold!" he yelped as he jerked his hand back away from the water.

There was frost rimming the edge of the tub. Len's powers were returning now that he'd cooled down again. "Be careful, I could freeze your hand," he muttered, giving in to the inevitable. There was no way to hide the truth now.

"Yeah, I don't think that's going to be a problem. You look one step short of death." Barry leaned in again, more careful this time as he examined the wound. "Were you fighting a metahuman? That's a Lichtenberg mark, did you get struck by _lightning_?"

"Pretty much. I guess you've got a good idea how crappy I feel at the moment, as a result." Len narrowed his eyes at the younger man. "You don't seem shocked to find me sitting comfortably in an ice bath after a fight with a metahuman."

Barry rolled his eyes as if Len had just said the dumbest thing ever. " _Please_. Did you really think I hadn't figured it out? Half the precinct has money on you being Captain Cold. There's some blisters forming, but it doesn't look too bad. Can you move the arm okay?"

It didn't surprise him that there was betting happening. Cops loved to bet almost as much as they loved to gossip. Of course there was a pool on the identity of Captain Cold. The surprising part was that so many had correctly guessed it was _him_.

Apparently Len hadn't been nearly as sneaky as he'd thought he was. 

Lifting his arm, he flexed his hand to test his range of motion. It hurt to move, but everything was responding correctly. "So, how much are you going to win?" he asked, sour at the thought of all the wasted effort he'd put into hiding his identity.

"Oh, Joe and I both bet on other people." Barry grinned down at him. "It throws everyone else off - they figure we know you best, so if _we_ don't believe you could be Cold, they start questioning themselves. I've got a hundred bucks on the quarterback from the Central City Tornadoes. Joe even started a rumour that you'd developed a mild case of germophobia, to explain why you started wearing the gloves."

Len stared at him, boggled. "You two have been colluding to redirect suspicion off me, but didn't bother to tell _me_ you'd figured it out? How long have you known?"

"Known is a strong word, but since a month or two after you started being Captain Cold, I guess." Barry shrugged, and got up to rummage in the linen closet. "Joe said when you were ready to tell us, you would, and if we poked you about it before that, it would make you dig in and deny it forever. Mick agreed with him, so we've just been doing what we could to help cover for you."

"Mick too?" So much for being worried about how his friend would react. The asshole had probably been laughing at Len this whole time for not realizing the people around him had figured out his secret.

Turning with an armful of towels, Barry settled back down beside him. He folded one into a smaller rectangle, then gently lifted Len's head to ease it into place as a pillow. "And Lisa - once we proved we’d figured it out, she admitted that she knew.”

Which explained why his sister had been subtly nagging him for months that things might be easier for Len if he opened up and told the truth to a few people. He’d thought she was just being her usual nosy self. Which, actually, she still was, but at least her advice had been based on solid intel, not naive idealism as he’d believed.

Barry’s smile was very wry. “Like I told you, Len. You don't always have to be the one charging in to solve _our_ problems. Once in a while, it'd be nice if you'd let us help you, instead." 

All this time Len had thought he was doing this on his own, and he'd had a support system he wasn't even aware of. Maybe Barry was right, and he did try to be too much of a loner. 

Had the Flash been aware of that, somehow? Was that why he'd texted Barry? It was hard to say what the thief might or might not know about Len beyond his identity. Len was seriously uncomfortable with the idea that Flash had any idea of who the people closest to him were.

It meant the thief also understood how best to get to him, what his biggest vulnerabilities were. If he knew Barry was close to Len, that would explain why Flash had chosen Barry for the disappearing heart trick.

Except, why the hell had the thief _carried him home_ and summoned help for him? Why protect him from Mardon in the first place? Was it all headgames, as Len had accused him, or was the Flash actually as innocent as he'd protested?

That kiss... christ, Len _really_ didn't want to think that he'd kissed a killer. That he could have enjoyed the touch of a murderer that much, could have let himself melt into it even for the briefest instant. The contact had been scorching in more ways than one, and it had been self-preservation that made Len push Flash away, not rejection.

The bastard knew it, too. The grin on his face was clear even through the blurring, when Len couldn't bring himself to say that he hadn't wanted it.

A sharp snap of fingers inches from his face jolted Len out of his thoughts, and back to awareness of reality. Barry was leaning over him, eyes wide and concerned. When he saw Len was focused on him, the younger man gave him a tight smile. "You were wool-gathering, I couldn't get your attention. Is it possible you got hit on the head?"

"It's not a concussion," Len muttered, scrubbing a hand briskly over his face to try to wake himself up. "It's exhaustion and shock, maybe a little heatstroke thrown in for good measure. I just need to rest."

"Well, I'm guessing you can't be hurt by the cold anymore, but I assume you can still drown." Barry patted his shoulder. "You can't sleep in the tub. Think you're cool enough to make it to the bed? Do you need help?"

"I'm injured, not an invalid. I can do it myself," Len growled, and made a shooing motion. "If you want to be useful, go make me something to eat. Calories will help."

Barry hovered for a moment, uncertain, but Len's glare finally seemed to convince him. "All right. I'll be right back."

As soon as he was gone, Len shoved himself upright. The room spun around him, and he hissed through clenched teeth with the effort it took to clamber to his feet. Maybe he should have let Barry help him, after all. The kid did keep saying he wanted Len to lean on him, though he probably hadn't meant it literally.

Damn it, Len really needed to stop thinking of him as 'the kid'. Barry had proven tonight that he was far more than that.

Somehow Len dried himself off, shucked the soaked boxers, and staggered into his room to collapse on the bed. He burrowed under the mass of blankets, savouring the cool feel of the sheets against his skin.

Barry returned moments later, carrying a plate. His brow furrowed when he saw Len in the bed. "Is it a good idea to have that many blankets? Won't you overheat again?"

"Blankets work by insulating you and trapping your body heat in an air pocket around you. It does the same thing for me, except it's trapping cold, and keeps the warm air out." Len pushed himself gingerly to a sitting position.

"What warm air? Your furnace isn't even turned on anymore, is it?" Barry offered him the plate full of leftover lasagna.

Len reached for it, and yelped as the hot stoneware scorched his fingers. It hadn’t occurred to him to warn Barry not to heat the food up too much. He snatched his hand back, grunting as the sudden move aggravated the pain in his shoulder.

"Oh, shit!" Barry scrambled not to drop the plate or spill its contents everywhere, his expression hang-dog. "Crap, I didn't even think about it."

"I can't have hot food anymore," Len confirmed with a sigh. "It’s a balancing act - has to be warm enough that it doesn’t turn to ice the moment I put it in my mouth, but not hot enough to burn me. Just put it on the bedside table. Once it cools down a bit, I can eat it."

"Sorry." Barry cringed. "Here I'm trying to get you to rely on me, and then I make a stupid mistake like that. It does explain why you don’t have any hot chocolate. I thought it might make you feel better, but I couldn’t find any."

"Not your fault," Len assured him. "Trust me, it took me a while to figure out what my limits are, too. I appreciate the help, regardless."

A series of muffled beeps came from the direction of the bathroom, and Len frowned. "That's Joe's ring. Why would he be calling me at this time of night?"

The beeping stopped, and a moment later Barry’s phone started ringing. "It must be important." Frowning, Barry pulled his phone out of his pocket and punched 'accept call', putting it on speakerphone. "Hey Joe, it's Barry. Len's here, too."

"Oh good, saves me telling it twice." Joe's voice was heavy and slow in that way he had when he was upset or disturbed about something. 

The bottom dropped out of Len's stomach. There was only one thing he could think of that would put that tone in his partner's voice, and make him call so late. "They found another body with the heart missing? Same MO?"

"Not quite." Joe sounded grim. "They found the body on a rooftop - no visible wound just like before, but this time the heart was mangled and left sitting on top of his chest. Judging by the look on his face, he didn't die anywhere near as fast or as easily as Candace Wilson, either."

"Any ID on the body?" Barry asked. There was an edge of relief in his voice, and after a moment Len realized why - if the victim was a man and the heart left behind, that meant it no longer followed the pattern of his father's murders.

"Don't need it, I've arrested this guy before. It's Mark Mardon."

The words fell into Len's mind with the impact of a bomb. He felt numb, and it was an effort to force himself to speak. "Mardon? The Weather Wizard? You're _sure_?"

"Absolutely."

"Then I was the last person to see him alive." If Joe knew he was Captain Cold, there was no point in trying to hide it. Fury swelled within him, giving him a second wind as he pushed fully upright and grabbed the phone from Barry. "Me... and the Flash. God damn it!"

There was no question who the culprit was. This was absolute proof, as far as Len was concerned. So much for any lingering hope that he'd been wrong.

"No!" Barry protested, collapsing onto the side of the bed. He was staring at the phone like he could glare Joe into admitting that he was mistaken. "That's not... it wasn't. It can't be!"

"It is, and you know it." Len's fist tightened. "I'm sorry, Barry, but you need to stop denying the truth. The Flash is a murderer - two times over, now."

Barry looked like he was thinking about being sick, one hand clapped over his mouth, trembling and pale as a ghost. Len wished he could offer some comfort or reassurance.

Right now, he had more important things to do. He shoved the blankets down and forced himself to sit up further. "I'm on my way. Don't let anyone touch the scene until I get there."

“What? No. Len, you’re injured, you’re not going anywhere.” Barry recovered from his shock enough to push Len’s unburned shoulder, forcing him back down again. 

Len was ashamed to admit how easily Barry was able to manhandle him into submission. He was weak as a kitten, and even that much effort left him shaking. 

“Injured?” Now Joe sounded worried. 

“He was struck by lightning, fighting Mardon as Captain Cold,” Barry said, before Len could try to reassure his friend. “And as I know all too well, that’s not something you get up and saunter away from. He’ll be okay, but I’ll sit on him if that’s what it takes to keep him down until he recovers.”

Joe chuckled. “It just might. Stay put, Leonard. I got this. I’ll give you the full report tomorrow, and you can fill me in on all the details you were refusing to tell me earlier. Maybe we can get this mess put to bed now that we’re all on the same damn page.”

So Joe really did know the truth. Had covered for him, was _still_ covering for him right now. His partner was right, it had been wrong of Len to hold information about the case back from him. Now that he could tell Barry and Joe the full truth, they stood a much better chance of ending this before any further bodies turned up.

And Len _was_ going to end it, one way or the other. The Flash was going down.


	7. Chapter 7

Three weeks after Mardon's death, Barry was just about ready to vibrate himself into orbit from tension and nervous energy. Len was no closer to catching the Flash, which was good, but every hour that passed also made it less likely the police would find the real killer - especially since they weren’t looking for him. Barry had tried to do what he could on his own, but Len remained firm about not allowing him to work on the evidence.

Worse, Barry had been forced to severely curtail his activities as the Flash. The problem wasn’t so much that he couldn’t steal anything - he rarely pulled a heist more than once a month anyway, wouldn’t even have done it that often except for the lure of playing with Captain Cold.

No, the real problem was that he barely dared to go running. Every cop in the city was on the lookout for him, and Len had figured out he could use the traffic cams to track the Flash's path. They couldn't do anything to stop or catch him, but given enough time and data, Len _would_ find the pattern in Flash's movements. It wouldn't be too hard to figure out that he was most commonly spotted near STAR Labs, the precinct, and most incriminating of all, Barry's neighbourhood.

He'd spent more time at the Labs than usual, running on the track to try to burn off his excess energy. Cisco and Caitlin didn't seem to mind the company, and were grateful for the extra data, but running inside was too confined to feel satisfying. A few times he'd left the city and gone to Gotham or Starling and back, and that had helped. But he kept worrying that Len would somehow find out Barry had been that far away, and put two and two together.

It was getting harder and harder not to let his speed bleed through into his normal activities. He would look at the clock and discover that only seconds had passed in what felt like hours, or realize he hadn't heard the leaky faucet in his lab dripping and glance up to find a water drop making its ponderous way through the air. For the first time he was grateful that none of the other CSIs had wanted to work with him when he'd started, and he'd been shoved into the secondary lab in the attic by himself.

On the bright side, his apartment had never been so clean, and his inbox at work was at an all-time low. Really, that alone should have told Len and Joe there was something very wrong.

Right now, Barry _needed_ the adrenaline rush of a successful heist to calm and stabilize him, like he’d never needed it before. He felt like a junkie, jonesing for his next hit. 

As a kid, shoplifting had been the one defiance he dared to permit himself. Getting away with a crime made him feel smart and successful, helped him remember that just because his father constantly berated him for being a useless waste of space, that didn't make it true. And every dollar hoarded away beneath the floorboard in his bedroom had been one step closer to being able to flee the bastard's control once and for all.

At some point, stealing had become his security blanket. The illicit thrill of it could improve Barry’s mood no matter how badly he’d been lectured and punished. More than once, he’d used it to counter the nearly overwhelming urge to kill himself in despair. 

And it was what had brought him to Len’s attention, started the man investigating the truth of Barry’s family. Being a thief had literally saved Barry’s life.

For ten years after Len rescued him, Barry hadn't stolen a single thing. Hadn't needed to. Through the worst of the shitstorm surrounding Henry Allen's trial, even when the panic attacks had started to hit in a PTSD reaction, he’d known Len was there for him. There was no need for a security blanket that would only disappoint his hero. 

Becoming a metahuman had shaken that safety net, as Barry struggled to find ways to handle the demands his new powers put on him. Now it had been torn away entirely by Len's dogged determination to hunt down the Flash and put him behind bars. 

So when an email popped up in the secure dark web account his hacker friend Felicity had set up for the Flash, Barry couldn't resist opening it even though he _knew_ he shouldn't take the risk of pulling a job. 

The email was pretty standard, laying out the terms of the contract and how much was being offered. After the botched attempt at STAR Labs, Barry had rethought his approach and gotten smart about it. He worked on commission, not by selling what he stole. Felicity had helped him land the first few contracts, and the Flash had quickly developed a very solid reputation among certain circles. 

He was known for being able to get the job done with minimal property damage and no loss of life. If they required discretion, he could be in and out with nobody knowing he’d been there, until the theft was discovered after the fact. Big businesses used him for corporate espionage; wealthy individuals hired him to obtain the painting or objet d'art they simply _must_ have for their private collection. 

But the Flash had strict rules, and the job had to appeal to him. He wouldn't steal irreplaceable treasures or heirlooms, wouldn't take anything the target couldn't afford to lose, and wouldn't sabotage a company in a manner that would put them out of business. 

In his own way, Barry was still trying his best to keep his promise to Len. Even if Len probably wouldn't agree he was doing any such thing.

This particular job seemed tailor-made for him, especially with everything going on right now. A quick google search revealed that the target was a wealthy old man who was currently away on his honeymoon with wife number four, a girl barely in her twenties. The particular statuette requested was tucked away in the man's private safe at his penthouse apartment, where there would be relatively little security since the owner wasn't home. Better yet, a search on the statue itself turned up a newspaper article about it being stolen from a museum two years ago, which meant the target had obtained it illegally in the first place.

They were only offering ten thousand, but the job was exactly what he needed right now. Barry replied, accepting the contract and providing the account number for the offshore account also set up by Felicity. She’d get a notification when money was deposited, and take a small percentage as her cut for all her help.

The response came within a few minutes, half the payment deposited with the promise of the other half upon delivery of the statue to a particular locker at the Central City Greyhound Station.

Barry pulled his Flash suit on but left the cowl dangling at his back, then covered it with jeans and a hoodie. Since Len had started watching traffic cams, Barry always walked as far as he had the patience to go from his apartment, trying to be sure the Flash wasn't recorded too often in his area. Keeping his pace to something resembling normal when he was only moments away from running a job was sheer torture, but Barry forced himself to go all the way to the subway station.

Too bad he didn't dare call Captain Cold out. This would have been the perfect job for that, too - private location, no discretion clause in the contract, and nobody around to distract them or interrupt.

At the subway station, Barry ducked around the entrance into an alley where the cameras didn't reach. He whipped his clothes off, stuffed them into his backpack and ran up the side of the building to leave it on the roof. He'd retrieve it when he was done, and walk home again.

Pulling the cowl up, he grinned and settled himself into a runner's starting position, back foot braced against the raised edge of the roof. He could go from zero to mach two from standing just as easily, but he liked starting his heists this way. It felt right, somehow.

"On your mark... get set..." he chanted to himself, his whole body vibrating with the need to run. "Go!"

It might have been the fastest he'd gone yet, and he laughed for the sheer joy of it. There was _nothing_ like this feeling, nothing that could possibly compare. He didn't know what it was like for other metas when they used their powers, but for Barry the literal rush of it was as good as any drug.

He reached the target building far too quickly. Well, he could do a victory lap or two, he'd have earned it. Circling the building now would only give the police a chance to realize he was in the area, so he ran up the side instead. According to the blueprints he'd found on the city archive website, the target's apartment took up the entire top floor. 

On the roof, Barry paused for a moment to find the right vibration to match the surface beneath him, then synced with it and dropped straight down into the apartment below. He landed in a crouch with his gloved fingertips braced on the hardwood floor, and looked around.

No visible security... wait, no, there was a camera in the corner of the room. The red light wasn’t on yet, he was moving too fast for the motion detector to see, but when he stopped at the safe it would notice him. Most alarm systems gave you thirty seconds from activation to punch in the code and turn them off. By the time that grace period was up, the Flash would already be long gone.

The blueprints hadn't explicitly indicated the location of the safe, but he’d noticed one suspiciously thick wall between the office and the bedroom. Sure enough, a quick search turned up a section of the bookshelf where all the books were glued together, and the whole facade lifted away to reveal the safe built into the wall behind.

Barry knew how to crack safes the hard way - he'd spent many long hours in the punishment room with his ear pressed to his father's safe, slowly turning the dial and learning the various sounds the mechanism made. The process wasn't anywhere near as easy as the movies made it look, requiring the cracker to make detailed charts and graphs, or have a very, _very_ good memory.

He could brute-force it, trying every combination in a matter of seconds, but that was actually more painstaking and boring than doing it with finesse. It might only be seconds to the rest of the world, but it felt like hours to him.

Thankfully, he had a much faster way of accomplishing the same thing. Pressing his hand to the heavy metal, he concentrated on once again finding the matching resonance frequency. This model of safe didn't have the anti-drilling safeguards that would render it completely inoperable if it detected vibrations. All he had to do was reach through the front, find the drive cam, and spin the notched wheels until the gates lined up and the fence fell into place. With the locking bar out of the way, the mechanism clicked open.

Triumphant, Barry swung the door open and regarded the contents. The statuette was right where it was supposed to be, a primitive stone carving of a naked woman with exaggerated breasts reclining on a couch, her legs spread wide. Not only was it lewd, it wasn't even aesthetically pleasing. Barry had no idea why anyone would _want_ the thing, but that wasn't his concern.

There were some very nice jewellery pieces, including a stunning diamond necklace, but he left those alone. One of his trademarks was that he took the items he was contracted for and _only_ what he was contracted for. Straight up cash he considered fair game, but sadly this target didn't appear to keep an emergency fund. Oh, well. 

He slipped the statuette into the bag he'd brought for that purpose, closed the safe door and spun the dial to relock it, then tossed a jaunty salute in the direction of the camera. One wall of the office was floor-to-ceiling windows, so he vibrated his way through the glass and took off running down the side of the building.

Slipping the statuette into the locker at the Greyhound station was a matter of moments. He didn't have a key, so he pushed it right through the door and left it inside. Learning to phase through solid objects was worth _every_ second of all the tests and experiments Caitlin and Cisco ever wanted to run on him.

Barry allowed himself the promised victory laps, expanding the circle to encompass the whole city, so he could run that much farther. The only problem with superspeed was that it meant his heists took so little time, he barely got a chance to enjoy the thrill of it. That was one of the reasons he'd started inviting Captain Cold, to draw things out and make them more challenging and fun.

Finally he started to tire, with all that excess energy bled out into his speed. For the first time in weeks Barry felt like himself again, grounded and centered in the here and now, instead of worrying about the future or getting caught in the past.

Reluctant though he was to stop, Barry turned for home. He'd promised Caitlin and Cisco he'd spend this weekend at the Labs, starting bright and early tomorrow, so he did need to get some sleep. They wouldn't be happy if he exhausted himself, either. If he wasn't at peak performance, they wouldn't get a true reading on how well their new power dampener was working.

When he reached the rooftop where he'd stashed his clothes, Barry frowned as the faint sound of music reached his ears. The closer he got, the louder it became, until finally he recognized Len's ringtone on his phone. 

Swearing, he fumbled in his backpack and yanked out the phone. The lock screen showed two prior missed calls, also from Len. Thinking fast, Barry hit the 'accept' button. "Hey, sorry, were you trying to reach me? I was out jogging, I didn't bring my phone."

There was a pause, and he could almost hear Len blinking in confusion. "Since when do you jog?"

It was a perfectly valid question, and Barry told himself he was imagining the overtone of suspicion. "Well, you know. Getting hit by lightning kinda gives you an appreciation for how valuable your life is. I mean, you actually do _know_ that, now, since you got hit too. So I figured I'd better do a little more to keep myself in good health."

Damn it, he was rambling. He always did that when he got nervous, and Len _knew_ that.

Then again, Barry also rambled for just about any other reason, so probably it wasn't that much of a red flag. Clearing his throat, Barry tried to redirect the conversation onto safer ground. "What's the emergency?"

"I need you out in Pine Ridge. I'm texting the address to you now. Bring your CSI kit."

"Bring my... what?" Barry’s heart sank, forming a cold stone pit in his gut. Pine Ridge was the neighbourhood he'd just robbed. It was well outside their precinct's jurisdiction, so there was no reason he _or_ Len should be working on the case.

Except, he'd forgotten that Len undoubtedly had put word out that _any_ Flash case should be shunted to him, as part of the ongoing murder investigation. Shit. "I got off duty hours ago. I'm not supposed to be back for two days."

"I know, and I'm sorry to interrupt your weekend." Len did sound genuinely apologetic, but he also sounded excited. Like a hound with the scent of prey in his nose - or in this case, a detective with his first solid clue to follow. "Chang's down with that stomach flu that's going around, and Liebowitz was covering, but her wife went into labour three weeks early and she had to go to the hospital. You're the only one left I trust for this."

Talk about bad timing. Barry scrambled to think of a way out. "I thought you didn't want me working on anything to do with the missing heart murders?"

There was another, longer pause. "How did you know it's about the Flash case?"

Crap, crap, _crap_. Barry was rattled, and making stupid mistakes. Rubbing a hand over his face, he forced himself to focus. "Why else would you be at a crime scene that belongs to another precinct? Why can't their CSI team handle it?"

"Because I don't have any influence over how their labs are run, and I want to be sure this will be a top priority." Now Len sounded impatient. "Get your ass over here on the double, or give me a very good reason why not."

There was no good reason Barry could possibly give. Sighing, he bowed before the inevitable. "All right, I'm on my way. For god's sake, don't let the uniforms tramp all over the scene. Precinct 3 can be sloppy about that."

"Teach your grandpa to suck eggs," Len snorted. "Joe's keeping them at the perimeter. I'll see you in ten."

"Ten minutes? I can't..." Barry was protesting to a dial tone. Groaning, he turned off the phone and tossed it back in the bag. What a clusterfuck. So much for all his clever plans to make sure he didn't process his own crime scenes.

He ran back to his apartment, switched his Flash suit out for his work clothes, and grabbed the spare kit he kept at home for emergency calls just like this one. Then he went downstairs and hopped on the nearest bus, intending to travel the normal way. Partly as cover for his identity, but also partly to make the point to Len that since he _wasn't_ the Flash, he couldn't get all the way across town in an instant just because Len declared it so.

It had been a long time since he'd taken public transit. Barry had forgotten how ponderously _slow_ it was. He made it eight excruciating minutes before impatience got the best of him, and he left the bus at the next stop to run the rest of the way.

Well, he could always say he'd already been on this side of town when Len called. Jogging. Far from home, in the middle of the night. In his work clothes, with his kit. God, why did he have to be such a bad liar when he was put on the spot? Hopefully Len would be too absorbed by the case to question the discrepancy.

He dropped back to normal speed a block away and made himself walk the rest of the distance. Flashing his CSI badge got him in the front door of the building, and at the top floor Joe waved him over the moment Barry exited the elevator.

"No sign of forced entry," Joe told him as Barry pushed past the two disgruntled looking uniformed officers who were guarding the entrance. "Security camera indicates Flash came in through the ceiling and out through a window. Snart wants you to start in the office."

"Got it." Barry paused to pull on the loose covers they used over their shoes to avoid leaving prints or tracking debris into the crime scene, then snapped on his latex gloves. "I'll dust the door eventually just in case, so don't let anyone touch it."

He stepped inside, pausing to look around as if he had no idea what the layout of the place was, then headed for the office where he could hear Len talking to someone. 

"...have a warrant. As soon as my CSI tech is here, I'll need you to open that safe."

"I understand, officer, but I..."

"It's Lieutenant."

"Pardon me. Lieutenant. But I can't..."

Barry poked his head around the door, and found Len speaking to a tall, willowy woman who clutched an iPad to her chest like a shield. Her suit was pressed within an inch of its life, the white fabric so bright it shone against her dark skin, and her subtle makeup and sleek french twist were camera-ready even at this hour. Executive assistant, or Barry would eat his kit. She looked distinctly unhappy to be dealing with Len.

Not surprising, given the aggressive way Len was leaning toward her, and the fiercely intent look on his face. The more a case mattered to Len, the harder he got on people of interest, even the ones who weren't suspects. This case mattered a _lot_.

"Excuse me, Lieutenant?" Barry interrupted, drawing Len's attention away from the poor, beleaguered woman. 

"Allen, there you are." Len waved him over, and pointed at the safe in the wall. Barry hadn't bothered to put the decoy shelf back in place in front of it. "Dust that for prints while I remind Mr. Donovan’s assistant that having a warrant means she's flirting with an obstruction of justice charge by refusing to open the damn safe."

"That's what I'm trying to tell you," the woman protested. "I'm not refusing, I simply don't know the combination! Mr. Donovan only kept private objects in his safe at home, so I never had reason to access it when he wasn't present. I've called twice and sent an urgent email, but he and his new wife are on an island with very little cell reception or internet. I don't know when we'll hear back."

"Damn it." Len crossed his arms, and scowled at the safe as if its refusal to magically open was offending him. "Would you at least know what, if anything, is missing?"

"Most likely," the assistant agreed, clearly relieved to have something she could offer as evidence of cooperation. "Mr. Donovan keeps an itemized list of the contents, so unless he placed something inside before he left and didn't record it, I should be able to account for the contents."

Biting the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing, Barry wondered what the statuette had been listed as. Presumably not ‘pilfered prehistoric porn’.

"Then we'll call a locksmith. If they have to damage the safe to get inside, so be it. We need to know what Flash took." Len pulled out his phone, then paused and looked at Barry with a hint of a wry smile. “Don’t suppose you remember anything about cracking safes from your wild teenage years?”

"Actually, there’s one thing I can try that’s fast, before you call someone to come spend an hour drilling it,” Barry admitted. 

Of course he couldn't use the same trick now that he had as the Flash, but the first tool in a thief’s arsenal was often the stupidity of the people they targeted. 

He quickly checked a few sites on his phone, then reached for the dial and started spinning it. Left, right, left, left again, and right... there. The latch clicked as it unlocked, sweet as a charm.

Len's eyebrows shot up, and the woman looked astonished. "How did you know the combination?" she demanded, eyes wide.

"You'd be surprised how many people keep the try-out combination. The one that the safe is shipped with," Barry explained, grinning. "They assume it's as good as any other random set of numbers. Except, it's not random. The try-out combinations are industry-standard for each model, until you get into the _really_ top level expensive ones. It's the first thing the locksmith would have tried, too."

A real locksmith would have a codebook instead of a hacker site on the dark web with the list, but Len wouldn’t know that.

"I'll have to keep that in mind, if I ever buy a safe." Len shook his head, and that hint of a smile grew. “Go ahead and open it.” 

Barry grabbed the safe handle by hooking two fingers around it at the very top, in contact only with the back of the bar where they likely wouldn't be able to get a good print, anyway. Not that he’d been stupid enough to leave any, but he had to do his job thoroughly. When he tugged, the door swung wide on well-oiled hinges.

Inside, front and center on the top shelf, stood a glass jar with a white ribbon tied around its neck, holding a lock of bright red hair. And in the jar, floating in preservative liquid… Barry’s worst nightmare, come to life.

Impossible. Inescapable. Undeniable.

A human heart.


	8. Chapter 8

The safe door blocked Len's view inside, but there was no way he could miss Barry's reaction as it swung open. The young man froze, all the blood draining from his face as his eyes went wide. He shuddered, his whole body trembling, and gave a strangled cry of terrified denial as he stumbled back, away from the safe. 

Barry hit the corner of the desk and fell, landing hard on his ass. In what looked like an instinctive move, he scrambled backward until he fetched up against the far wall, then pulled his knees up against his chest as if to protect himself. All the while, his shocked gaze never left the safe.

Alarmed, Len rushed over and dropped down beside the younger man. "Barry! What the hell?"

Nothing. No reaction, not even a twitch. Baffled, Len turned, and got his first good look inside the safe.

Immediately, everything became clear. Len allowed himself a shocked moment of his own, staring at the heart in disbelief. Then he pulled himself out of it, because he had a fucking job to do. If anyone was allowed to fall apart over this, it was Barry, not Len. 

"West!" he roared, and heard his partner's footsteps running in from the hall. "Clear the room. Get her out of here, lock down the floor - _nobody_ comes or goes. I don't care if it's the goddamn police chief himself."

"What..." Joe skidded to a halt in the doorway, took one look at Barry, then followed Len's gaze to the safe. Like Len, he spent a second gaping, then shook his head and snapped to. "Ms. Baldwin, you need to come with me now. _Right_ now."

Satisfied that his partner had the business end of things well in hand, Len returned his attention to the much more personal issue. Barry had wrapped his arms around his legs and buried his face in his knees, huddled into the tightest ball he could possibly make of himself. His breathing was fast and ragged, well on the way to hyperventilating, and he was shaking so hard he was practically buzzing.

"Barry. Come on, Barry, look at me," Len coaxed him, rubbing gloved fingers over the young man's back. Shifting, he placed himself between Barry and the safe, blocking his view if he did look up. "It's Len. You're safe. Come back."

Still nothing. It was a full-blown panic attack, one of the worst Len had ever seen him in, and definitely the worst in a long time. Small wonder, when Barry was undoubtedly right back in the nightmare Len had pulled him out of, all those years ago. Locked in that airless, reeking coffin that masqueraded as a hidey-hole, the 'punishment room' that Henry Allen had forced the boy into for hours at a time, for the slightest perceived infraction or failure. 

The room with the safe that Barry had cracked, thinking he would find enough money to finally escape his monster of a father. Only to discover that even he hadn't realized the true depths of Henry Allen's depravity, until he found the nine hearts kept as trophies by the Lonely Hearts Killer.

Hearts sealed in glass jars, with locks of red hair tied around their necks by a white ribbon. Exactly like the one now sitting in Charles Donovan's safe, placed there by the Flash.

Leaving the heart with Barry in the lab that day might have been a coincidence, but this was far beyond mere conspiracy. The jar in a safe would have been proof enough, but very few people knew about the ribbons and hair.

Flash had done his homework, dug deep into Barry's past, and there was no way this could be anything but a personal, targeted vendetta.

But _why_?

A keening whine drew his focus back to Barry, and Len shoved all questions of 'why' and 'how' to the side for now. Desperate to get the young man's attention and break him out of the panic cycle, Len tugged one of his gloves off and placed his bare hand at the back of Barry's neck. He concentrated fiercely on containing his powers, allowing only the slightest trickle of frost to creep out across the fragile flesh beneath his fingers. 

As he'd hoped, the shock of the cold startled a yelp out of Barry, and he jerked out of his tight ball in an effort to get away from Len's freezing hand. "What the hell... Len?"

"Yes... _look at me_ ," Len insisted when Barry's gaze started to slide back toward the safe. Trembling, Barry obeyed, keeping his eyes fastened on Len’s. "That's it. Stay with me, Barry. You're safe."

"That's... that's..." Barry clearly couldn't get the words out, and his voice was shaking as badly as the rest of him. "How?"

"The Flash must have put it there." Len saw the stubborn denial cross Barry’s face, like he was about to protest, and he sighed. "Barry, stop. Why are you still trying to plead his innocence?"

"But I..." Growling, Barry rubbed at his face with both hands, and when he came up again his expression was angry and frustrated. That was a distinct improvement over the previous thousand-mile stare.

Even better, Barry pushed aside his anxiety and went straight to the heart of the matter, proving once and for all that he was indeed the adult he kept insisting Len see him as. “I meant, how could anyone have known I'd be the CSI to process this scene? It's not in our precinct's jurisdiction, the robbery didn't happen until after I'd left for the night, and you haven't been letting me anywhere near the heart-related crime scenes, anyway!"

That was true, and something Len hadn't gotten around to considering, yet. The Flash could easily be responsible for Chang’s stomach issues, if he’d slipped into the CSI tech’s home and put something in his drink or food. But Liebowitz’s wife going into labour? Hell, at this point, Len wouldn’t put anything past the meta.

He was reluctant to drag Barry any further into this living nightmare by discussing it with him. At the same time, if running theories helped Barry to feel like he was coping instead of only reacting, Len was happy to go with it. 

"Either Flash arranged things so you’d be the only one available, or it was aimed at me,” he suggested. “I was the lead on your father's arrest, so I'm connected to his case too. At least we've finally got the heart in our possession."

"I don't think it's the same heart." Barry swallowed, like he was trying not to be sick. "The hair's the wrong colour, several shades lighter than Wilson’s auburn."

Another victim. First a body with no heart, and now a heart with no body. Flash was mocking them. Hell, Len wouldn't be surprised if the new body turned up, only for them to discover the heart had gone missing from evidence again. 

"None of this makes any sense," Len growled. "Whether they're targeting me, you, or both of us, it's clear that this is connected to your father's murders. But the question is still, _why_?"

The thought occurred to both of them at the same time, and stark terror crept into Barry's eyes. There was certainly one person who hated them both, who knew every detail about the Lonely Hearts Killer. One person with all the motive in the world to torment and terrorize both of them.

Henry Allen. 

The man should be locked up tight in his cell, and _surely_ word would have gotten out if the serial killer had escaped weeks ago. Nor could the man be the Flash - the meta might blur his face, but Len couldn’t picture Allen engaging in the kind of light-hearted banter and flirting that Captain Cold’s nemesis loved so much. That didn’t preclude the possibility that Allen was involved somehow, as an accomplice if nothing else. 

Len gripped Barry’s shoulder tight with his still-gloved hand, and shook him gently. "Wait," he ordered. "Don't freak out yet. Let me check with Iron Heights."

Pulling away, he flipped his phone open and dialled the number for the penitentiary from memory. His name and rank got Len put through to the night head of security, and a quick explanation of the situation had the man falling all over himself to help. Len waited impatiently as the guard went to check on their infamous prisoner, then sighed in relief when the answer came back positive. 

"Your father is in solitary confinement, has been for weeks," he assured Barry as he flipped his phone closed. "The guard I spoke to put eyes on him personally. Whoever Flash is, whyever he’s doing this, Henry Allen is not involved."

"I might just go visit him tomorrow, to see for myself," Barry muttered. 

"No, you will _not_." The words came out sharper than Len had meant them to, and Barry jumped. Softening his tone, Len elaborated. "I'm going to do it myself. There's no need to subject yourself to his presence." 

Not once in ten years had Barry gone to see his father in jail, and Len was absolutely certain he never would, unless circumstances forced him to. Len would do damn near anything to spare Barry the pain of that confrontation, if he could.

"Thanks, Len." Barry shivered and touched the back of his neck, where the frost had melted into tiny trickles of water. He managed a thin smile. "Pretty effective way of snapping me out of it. Guess it's a good thing you know I know, you know?" He blinked. "That didn't come out right."

"If you're worrying about coherency, then you're together enough to get out of here." Standing - careful to stay between Barry and the open safe - Len offered his gloved hand to help the young man rise.

Barry took the offered hand and let Len pull him to his feet. He glanced at the door to the rest of the apartment, then threw his arms around Len's waist and huddled close, face buried in Len's shoulder.

“Sorry,” he muttered, voice muffled in Len’s sweater. “I keep asking you to see me as a capable adult, and then I go right back to being a scared kid.”

“You also keep asking me to lean on you, so why are you ashamed if you need to lean on me once in a while?” Len countered, wrapping his arms tight around Barry in turn. “Being an adult doesn’t mean never giving in to your fear or emotions. It means being able to do what’s needed despite those feelings, and you’re doing just fine on that count.”

He couldn’t remember the last time Barry had hugged him like this. It had always been rare for the sullen teen to accept physical comfort, even from Len, despite how much he’d obviously craved it. He'd stopped allowing it entirely around the time he went to college, probably worried it made him look like a baby. Len was surprised how much he'd missed having the boy - young man, damn it - close. 

He tried hard not to think about how much it reminded him of the only other time anyone had been this close to him in the last year. Len bit back a scowl, not wanting Barry to believe the ire was aimed at him, but seething with rage at the memory of Flash pressed against him. Whatever the thief's agenda was, it was clear the meta was taking great delight in tormenting his nemesis, in every way possible.

* * *

Iron Heights, like every incarceration center Len had ever been in, was a dismal, unwelcoming place. The concrete walls and floors always looked dingy, though he knew it was kept scrupulously clean as part of the prisoners' work rotations. It felt cold inside, even in the heart of summer - the kind of cold that crept into your bones and sapped your energy, leaving you listless and apathetic. Soul-sucking, he'd heard a visitor call it once.

Len couldn't disagree. One of the best things about making lieutenant had been the greatly lessened need for him to ever come here. Even now, immune to the chill as he was, this kind of cold felt unwelcoming to him.

Today was worse than usual, as he waited impatiently in the private room reserved for lawyers and police interviews. The last thing he wanted to do was spend time with Henry Allen, but Len couldn’t overlook the connection. 

It was possible Flash was an accomplice or even a protege, not merely a copycat. Len had checked the logbook and Allen had never had any visitors, but they could be communicating through letters.

Allen would no doubt delight in the chance to taunt and denigrate Len. The man was almost impressively convinced of his own superiority, and loved proving it to those he perceived as beneath him.

Which was to say, everyone on the damn planet. But especially his son, and the man who had taken that son away from him.

Sure enough, Allen was smirking as two guards led him into the room. His steps were shuffling, the chain between his leg cuffs shortened to prevent him from running. When he sat at the other side of the table, one of the guards uncuffed his hand just long enough to feed the chain of the cuff through the ring bolted to the middle of the table, then snapped it closed around Allen's wrist again.

Len raised a disdainful eyebrow of his own. "I heard you were in the SHU, but hobbles seem a little excessive. Don't tell me you've been brawling, Allen? Here I thought you’d be the dignified 'I'm too good for this' type of prisoner."

The former doctor's lip curled in a sneer. "The gentleman in the cell next to me took it into his head that my age and stature made me an easy target, and somehow convinced himself that if my alleged victims were all women, it meant I was incapable of standing up to a real man." The mocking tone in the last words made it clear he was repeating a phrase the man in question must have used. "I'm sure he's learned his lesson."

Said lesson undoubtedly involved a shiv or some other makeshift weapon, Len was sure. The other inmate must have survived, Allen was still speaking of him in the present tense, but Len had little doubt the man was badly injured. Nobody knew exactly where and how to cause the most damage and pain like a doctor.

And nobody was _willing_ to cause damage and pain like a man with nothing to lose. Allen was on death row, would never see the outside world again, and only the grindingly slow pace and extensive red tape of the justice system had kept the poison needle out of his arm this long. Sociopath that the man was, being confined to the Solitary Housing Unit probably didn't even bother him, since he hated dealing with the rabble so much.

"To what do I owe this unprecedented visit, Mr. Snart?" Allen lounged back in his seat like a king on his throne, unbothered by the rattle of his chains as he moved.

There was no point in correcting him about the 'mister'. Allen knew perfectly well what the correct form of address was; he chose not to use it as a dig at Len. Since Len couldn’t give a shit what the murderer’s opinion of him was, the barb missed its target. 

"I'm sure you've heard about the circumstances of the Candace Wilson and Mark Mardon murders." Inevitably, despite Len's best efforts, the story had gotten out to the press eventually. The only detail they didn't have was the Flash bringing the heart to Barry's lab and then taking it away again. As of yet, the story of the new heart hadn’t broken, but Len had no doubt it would be the headline item in tonight’s news broadcasts.

"Mm, yes." Allen's eyes lit from within, the look on his face similar to that of a man savouring a perfectly prepared meal. "As a heart surgeon, naturally I'm quite intrigued by the removal of the heart with no trauma to the body. But I doubt you’ve come seeking my medical expertise. The police have already pinned this quite firmly on the Flash, haven’t they?"

Something about the way he said that made Len pause, scanning Allen's expression for any hint of what made him uneasy. 'Pinned this on' implied doubt about whether they had the right suspect. Was it another dig at the competence of the police, or something more? Nor was ‘intriguing’ a description Len felt comfortable applying to what was done to Wilson, Mardon, and their new Jane Doe.

"Last night we found the heart of a new victim." Len didn't want to give away too much here, but some info had to be spilled to get the reaction he wanted from Allen. “It had been placed in a safe, preserved in a glass jar, with a lock of red hair tied to it with a white ribbon."

Allen actually laughed, apparently delighted by the information. "Oh, really? I certainly see why you've come calling. Perhaps I should contact my lawyer. If the Lonely Hearts Killer is active again after all these years, it's the best possible evidence that the changes against me were entirely false."

That was a thought that had kept Len up all damn night. Wilson's case was similar, but not exactly the same as Allen's murders, and Mardon's death had seemed to take it entirely out of Lonely Hearts territory. But the jar in the safe, the white ribbon with the hair, was an unmistakable trademark of the Lonely Hearts Killer. 

If it was truly the old case going active again, perhaps spurred to new heights by the killer gaining metahuman powers, then the culprit couldn't possibly be the man sitting in front of him, safely contained in a high security prison. On the basis of new evidence of the killer's activity, Henry Allen might just walk free, and that was unthinkable. 

Henry Allen _was_ the Lonely Hearts Killer. Len knew that with every fiber of his being. The only other option was that it had been Barry all along, setting his father up to take the fall. 

Under slightly different circumstances that might almost be believable - after the horrific things Allen had done to his son, setting the man up for a murder rap could arguably be considered a warped form of justice. 

But Barry had been _ten_ at the time of his mother's death, and only fifteen when the last victim died. It was highly unlikely he could have travelled out of state to the sites of the other murders without being noticed, let alone have subdued and killed eight adult women without any sign of struggle.

More importantly, Barry simply wasn't that good an actor. Len had seen the agonized terror in the boy's eyes the night Barry had come to him to beg for help. He'd witnessed the desperately muffled sobs of relief, when Len had assured Barry his father was under arrest, and could never hurt him again. Barry had taken a huge risk, turning on his father. Only knowing that lives hung in the balance had forced the boy to come forward.

No, this was a copycat, or a new accomplice. There was no other explanation. "Here I thought you might be outraged by someone hanging on the coat-tails of your genius. Stealing your glory." Len tapped his fingers together, hoping the man would take the bait.

"That would only apply if I were guilty of the crimes in the first place, and proud of them." Allen's smile was warped, all harsh corners and twisted lines. "I won’t be so crass as to say I'm looking forward to the killer's next move, but I will admit to anticipation of the egg all over your face when I'm exonerated. I can't wait to see my son again. It’s been so long."

"I told you before, and I'll say it again." Len gave him a sharp smile of his own, full of promise and threat. "You'll get to Barry over my dead body."

Even if, by some impossible mechanism, Henry Allen truly was innocent of the killings, he was still guilty of horrific trauma and abuse against his son. Barry's panic attack tonight was only one symptom of the lingering effects of that damage, and Len would never give Allen a chance to victimize Barry further.

Now Len not only had to catch the Flash and stop the current murders, he had to make sure he proved the metahuman _wasn't_ the killer of ten years ago. And he had to do it quickly, because he wasn't how much more trauma Barry could take.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My beta pointed out that this should possibly have a 'body horror' warning on it, for graphic description of the traumatic removal of organs from a living person. I think that falls under the heading of 'canon-typical' violence, we've seen it repeatedly on the show, lol. But yeah, if you're squeamish, be warned.

On the one hand, Barry was grateful that he had two days off after the clusterfuck with the heart in the safe. He was badly shaken and upset, unable to focus for more than a few seconds at a time. He kept starting one task, getting partway through it, and abandoning it for the next. There was no way in hell he'd be able to perform his job competently, if he couldn't even successfully do his laundry.

On the other hand, Barry desperately wished there was _something_ he was expected to do. Something with a deadline, where somebody was counting on him, to force him to concentrate on it and forget about that fucking heart. Anything would be better than stumbling around his apartment like someone in the last stages of a zombie infection.

Len called, after the older man’s visit to Iron Heights. The overwhelming relief at confirming his father was still locked away in prison had, paradoxically, nearly sent Barry into another meltdown. He'd held it together, though Len had made concerned noises about Barry taking more time off. Thank god, the man was enough of a workaholic himself to understand when Barry protested that he needed something to ground him.

There had also been a suggestion in there about going to see the department psychologist, and Barry gave a vague reply that could be interpreted as agreement or refusal, depending on how you looked at it. He'd seen shrinks before, a rather impressive assortment of them; child services had insisted on it after his father had been arrested. 

He had to admit they'd helped him work through a few of the worst messes in his head, and he was certainly grateful for the anti-anxiety meds that had helped him find and stay on something resembling an even keel.

At least, he’d been handling things well before _this_ whole mess started. Too bad his powers meant he'd metabolize the pills almost instantly, and they'd never have a chance to take effect.

Right now, he wasn't sure there was much a shrink could do for him. More importantly, he was terrified he'd say something that would trip him up, reveal him as the Flash in some way. He couldn't afford the risk.

He'd called STAR Labs to beg off on the promised test runs the first day, and of course Caitlin said she understood. On the second day of his weekend, Barry decided he was better off getting out of the damn apartment, so he went over to see them. 

Unfortunately his upset and distraction affected his performance, and the test results were all over the place whether he was wearing the new dampening cuff or not. Caitlin even ordered him to the infirmary for a quick examination, but there was nothing for her to find. 

The problem was entirely in Barry's mind - or maybe in his bruised and battered soul.

Still in his Flash suit, too despondent to even bother taking it off, Barry collapsed face-down on his couch the moment he got home. All he wanted was to curl up into a ball and pretend that none of this was happening. 

Well, no. What he _really_ wanted was to call Len, hear the older man's soothing voice. Or better yet, go over to Len's and spend some time in his company. 

But Len was entirely wrapped up in this case right now, as he should be. Barry didn't want to distract him, and he _really_ didn't want to listen to more theories about how and why the Flash was killing people.

When his phone pinged with an incoming message, he managed to rouse himself enough to lift his head and check it. To his disappointment, the message wasn't from Len, but rather an email notification from his dark web account. Barry almost deleted it. He was _not_ in a fit state of mind to run another job.

Then he saw the address, and realized it was from the same person who'd contracted him for the statuette in the first place. Had something gone wrong with the drop? Shit, had he put the statue in the wrong locker or something? As badly as the rest of that heist had gone in the end, it wouldn't surprise him.

When he opened it, however, he found a link to a website. Curious, he hit the link and found it led to a live stream video page.

The video was running, but showed nothing but a black screen. Just when Barry was ready to conclude it was a prank, the lens cap was pulled off and colour flooded the screen. 

Red. Specifically, that peculiar shade of copper orange that is only referred to as 'red' when talking about human hair. In this case, long corkscrew curls spread out across a stainless steel surface.

Barry froze, horrified, his hands trembling. The camera pulled back to reveal the face of a terrified woman who looked barely out of her teens, a white gag stuffed into her mouth and tied around her head. She was crying, streaks of mascara like dirty fingers crawling over her cheeks, and her eyes were wild as she whimpered piteously.

The camera zoomed out further, panning up and around until it was perpendicular to her, showing that she'd been strapped by the wrists and ankles to what looked like an operating table. The room beyond looked like the inside of a shipping container, with rusted walls and a jury-rigged bare bulb hanging from the ceiling as the only source of light.

There was a blur, a familiar streak of lightning. Reflexively Barry fell into high speed mode, the video going into super slo-mo like a sports replay. His screen didn’t have a high enough refresh rate to show more than the shape of a man among the lightning flickers, but the effect was unmistakable.

It was exactly what the Flash looked like, when caught on camera.

Heart pounding, acid crawling up the back of his throat, Barry watched as the streak crossed the room, starting near the camera and ending on the other side of the woman strapped to the table. There it resolved into a man wearing a yellow skin-tight frictionless suit, very similar to the basic design of the Flash's red one. There was even a version of the Flash's lightning bolt on the chest, black on grey instead of yellow on white.

The man's face was blurred, the same way Barry did to disguise himself when he spoke to Captain Cold. Except Barry's perceptions were sped up already, which meant the man was moving _incredibly_ fast to appear blurred to him. "Hello, Barry. You have no idea how hard it was to find a camera capable of recording me at even this relatively slow speed, but I wanted to be sure this would remain private between us."

The voice was distorted as well. Barry was finally getting a taste of his own medicine, and it made acid churn in his gut. Or maybe that was the confirmation that the killer knew who the Flash really was, and was definitely targeting him specifically. Hell, maybe it was seeing the woman's eyes begin to widen as she realized her kidnapper was there, and hearing the faint whistle in the soundtrack that Barry knew was the start of her scream.

"Who the hell are you? What do you want?" he blurted out, then blushed as he remembered was a streaming video, not a two-way chat.

The killer smirked, as if he _could_ see through the screen to witness Barry's moment of idiocy. "I'm sure you're wondering who I am," he said, and there was a definite tone of mockery to the words. "For now, let's just call me... the Reverse Flash. That is what I am, after all. Your antithesis. Strong where you are weak. Intelligent where you are foolish. And most of all, fast where you are, to my eyes, slow."

There was a strange squeaking noise that wasn't coming from his speakers. After a moment Barry realized it was the sound of his teeth grinding together, because his jaw was clenched so hard. He struggled to even out his panicked breathing and release some of his tension. The last thing he wanted was to give in to the anxiety now.

"I don't know how well you research your targets, so I'm not sure if you recognize this young lady." Reverse Flash picked up a curl and ran it through his gloved fingers, a sick parody of the caress of a lover. "Meet the newest Mrs. Charles Donovan. I chose that job on the basis of being able to leave my present for you, but when I saw the wedding photo of the lovely couple and realized she was a redhead, it was too perfect to resist. Sadly, I learned too late that her hair is dyed, but she serves well enough for my purposes."

The killer held up his other hand, fingers rigid and pointed straight at Mrs. Donovan's heart. His hand blurred as he vibrated it, and lowered it oh-so-slowly toward her chest.

Barry already felt sick to his stomach, but now it was all he could do not to throw up on his keyboard. He clapped a hand over his mouth, shaking with equal parts rage, frustration, and panic.

"Consider this my invitation to you." Reverse Flash smirked at the camera. "I'm in the shipping yard near the eastside docks. Third row from the left, second red car on the top."

The video went dark again, and Barry was left with nothing but the sound of his own strained breathing for company. His old enemy, panic, was trying to drag him down into the morass, threatening to overwhelm him and send him cowering into the corner to hide.

But that woman, Mrs. Donovan, was about to die. At the rate Reverse Flash's hand had been descending, Barry estimated she had maybe twenty seconds before the Reverse Flash penetrated her chest, and another ten before he pulled her heart out and the damage was irreparable. Thirty precious seconds to live.

Thirty seconds for the real Flash to save her. And that meant not one single second to waste.

He was up and out the door before he had a chance to think about his actions. Once he was running, the speed itself helped to ground and calm him. He forced himself to breathe deeply, focusing on the strange taste air had when he was moving this fast, to keep the panic from winning. 

The Flash was no hero like Captain Cold, but this was _different_. This was personal. This was Barry’s chance to make up for the eight innocent women who had died because he was too much of a coward to avenge his mother's murder by turning his father in.

No matter how many times Len or Joe or the therapists told him that the lives of those women weren't on his shoulders, no matter how many times he told _himself_ , he could never shake the burden of it. Now there were three more people - Candace Wilson, Mark Mardon, and the still-unknown owner of the heart in the safe - who might not have died if Barry had stopped the Lonely Hearts Killer from ever existing, and prevented this murderer from becoming a copycat.

Three, soon to be four. Unless Barry stopped it. Nobody else could get there in time. Nobody else had a chance of beating a speedster.

He _would not_ let there be four.

Eleven seconds to cross the entire width of the city and reach the shipping yard. Another agonizing three before he found the right box, and was able to vibrate himself inside. God knew how much time internet lag might have cost him.

Barry burst through the wall, and found the Reverse Flash fingertip-deep into the woman's chest. Barry charged the other speedster with a yell, intending to tackle the man away from the victim. To his astonishment, the Reverse Flash evaded him, zipping past him to the other side of the shipping car.

"Not bad. Seconds to spare." Reverse Flash laughed, the sound distorted by his vibration. "I did so hope that you'd make it in time. My triumph will be all the sweeter when your failure to stop me is due to your ineptitude, not a timing issue."

"Yeah, there's one problem with that," Barry snarled. "I'm not going to fail."

Again he threw himself at the Reverse Flash. The man vibrated down through the floor, dropping into to the car below. By the time Barry followed him, he was already gone. Not only was he impossibly faster than Barry, he was better at syncing himself with solid objects in order to pass through them.

Frustrated, Barry pushed himself through the outside wall, hoping Reverse Flash had done the same and not gone sideways or down to yet another car.

Two rows to the left he saw the reflection of lightning, and chased after it. He took a shortcut around the end of the rows, and managed to catch up to his enemy. Reverse Flash's lightning was darker than Barry's, an orange close to red where Barry's was orange close to yellow.

"Do you really think you can beat me?" Reverse Flash taunted him. He vanished into another car. This time Barry didn't follow, but zipped up to the top of the row to wait and see where his enemy emerged.

Long seconds passed as he buzzed with impatience. Then suddenly a hand reached up from below, hooking him by the ankle and yanking hard. Barry went tumbling to the metal surface with a jolt hard enough to crack his ribs and make him see stars. Before he could recover, the hand reached up again, _through_ his back. He felt a sense of pressure, then excruciating pain in his abdomen.

Barry screamed and rolled away. Reverse Flash had disappeared again, but there was a revolting fleshy mass of _something_ left behind on the roof of the car. Something that belonged _inside_ Barry.

Not his heart - he could feel that pounding away in his chest, too fast even by his standards. That still left so many other possibilities, most of them likely fatal.

"Don't worry." A streak of light became the Reverse Flash standing atop the car on the next row over. "It's just your appendix. You can live without it. As long as you don't bleed to death internally from the sloppy removal, that is. Sure you want to be running around exerting yourself?"

Swallowing hard, Barry ignored the taunting and pushed himself back into a run. He healed at an incredibly fast rate, Caitlin had tested that extensively. The internal bleeding wouldn't kill him.

Probably. And assuming Reverse Flash didn't take anything _else_. 

They ran around and over and through the train cars, moving so fast sometimes Barry wasn't even sure who was chasing whom. Reverse Flash was faster, but in such a small area it didn't matter as much. The problem was the way he slipped through the train car walls like they weren't even there, back and forth and in and out until Barry never knew what direction he'd be coming from next.

Over and over, Reverse Flash caught him by surprise, slamming into him from the side and tumbling him painfully to the ground, or grabbing at him from below to trip him up. Sometimes the man was satisfied with whatever injury he managed to do with the impact, but other times he would grab some handful of Barry's body and rip it away. 

Reverse Flash never took anything that would be instantly fatal. First his spleen, then a kidney. Barry's healing struggled to repair the damage, to keep him alive and moving. The harder it had to work, the slower he got, step by incremental step. He forced himself to the limits and beyond, but it was clear he was outmatched.

Reverse Flash continued laughing, adding insult to injury that he had enough breath to do so. He wasn't quite running circles around Barry, but for the first time Barry understood why Len got so _frustrated_ when Captain Cold fought the Flash.

Captain Cold. Shit, maybe Barry was coming at this from the wrong direction. He couldn't catch Reverse Flash, had less hope of doing so with every step they took. But it wasn't running that had let him take down the Weather Wizard in that fight with Cold.

Instead of chasing after Reverse Flash, Barry ran to an open patch of ground and started going in circles, building up speed and energy. Reverse Flash paused up above him, watching him with his head cocked. "Trying to make a tornado to carry me away? You're going to have a hard time catching me in it."

Saving his breath, Barry pushed himself just that little bit faster. Then he came to an abrupt halt and flung his arms out toward the Reverse Flash. Lightning blasted between them, and struck the Reverse Flash squarely in the chest.

The man was blown back off the roof of the car. Barry raced around the end of the row, and skidded to a halt on the other side when there was no sign of the bastard. He leaned over with his hands on his knees, gulping down air and looking around frantically. 

Nothing. What the hell? The lightning wasn't anywhere near strong enough to have vaporized the man. Had he run off to lick his wounds? Right at the moment, Barry would happily count that as a victory.

Then the screaming started, stretched out and thin at superspeed, and Barry knew he'd been a fool.

Cursing himself, he bolted back to the car where it had all started. He pushed through the wall, fully expecting to find the Reverse Flash already pulling Donovan's heart out of her chest. Instead, though the gag had been removed, she was alone and screaming for no apparent reason, staring wildly at him.

He paused for the briefest instant, trying to figure out what was going on. Too late, he realized she _couldn't_ be staring at him, because there hadn't been enough time for her eyes to register his presence yet.

Reverse Flash’s hand plunged into the left side of his body, and through it. Barry choked on a scream as he saw the fist sticking out of his chest, holding a fleshy lump of _something_.

Lung, some distant part of him noted. Shock held him immobile, and apparently the CSI part of his brain had decided to take over. The Reverse Flash was holding Barry's left lung in his hand. Which probably explained why he was choking, actually. You could survive with one lung, but pulling the organ out abruptly like that had probably introduced air into his chest cavity, causing his remaining lung to collapse.

Reverse Flash pulled his hand back through, and there was a wet plop behind Barry as the man dropped his prize. Struggling desperately to draw breath, Barry collapsed to his knees, then keeled over onto his side on the floor. Pure instinct made him draw his knees in close, curling up as tightly as he could as if that would prevent any further damage.

As Barry fought to breathe like a landed fish, the Reverse Flash laughed and sauntered over to Mrs. Donovan. She was still screaming, and her eyes were starting to widen as she finally realized Barry was there too. Even if she hadn't been tied down, she had no hope of being able to dodge what came next.

Reverse Flash plunged his hand into her chest, then pulled it back with what looked like exquisite care. The heart emerged with his hand, still struggling to beat in a futile reflex that did Mrs. Donovan no good at all. In painfully slow motion her scream trailed off, eyes bulging as her body realized there was no longer blood pumping, and started to shut down. 

At some point, Barry's healing kicked in enough that his remaining lung reinflated. He gasped, sucking down air as fast as he could. Mrs. Donovan was trying to do the same, but there would be no miracle healing for her. She was already dead, and it was only a matter of seconds before the fact caught up with her.

Nothing Barry did now could save her. The new death count had risen to four, after all. So much for his determination to stop it from happening.

He didn't even know her first name. Somehow, that struck him as the worst part of all.

"I told you, Barry. Stronger, smarter, and faster." Reverse Flash shook his head, as if he was disappointed. He moved to loom over Barry, just out of arm's reach, still holding the dripping heart. "You never did listen. Never could learn your damn lessons. You're just like your mother, that way. Soft. Weak. Useless."

The words fell onto Barry's chest like lead weights, threatening to suffocate him all over again. He knew those words. Knew them intimately, painfully, after thousands of repetitions over the years. He still had nightmares about those words, that voice, that _tone_. Even with the blurring effect, Barry couldn't fail to finally recognize the man in front of him.

No matter how impossible it was.

"It can't be," he protested. "It can't! You're in jail, Len saw you himself!"

The Reverse Flash pushed his cowl back and stopped blurring his face. Henry Allen hadn't aged well in the harsh environment of prison. Deep grooves lined his mouth and eyes, he'd lost so much weight it looked like he was skin stretched over bone, and his hair was almost entirely gray. He looked ten years older than Barry knew him to be, but he'd lost none of his authoritarian air. 

"I told you it wasn't over," Henry mocked him. "That I would pay you back for your betrayal. After everything I did for you. I fed you, clothed you, sheltered you."

"That's what a father is _supposed_ to do." Barry couldn’t catch his breath, but he forced the words out with all the strength he had left, fists clenched as he reeled with shock both physical and mental. "You don't get bonus points for that! I don't _owe_ you for it!" 

He pushed painfully to his knees, wobbling as the rail car spun around him, warning that the damage from the fight was still very much affecting him. "Know what else a dad is supposed to do? _Love_ me. Support me. Not fucking lecture me for hours about how worthless I am, and then lock me into a closet and leave me there until I humiliate myself! Not _murder my fucking mother right in front of me!_ "

If he could have drawn a full breath, he'd have been screaming by the end, all the rage and shame pouring out of him like a flood bursting through a dam. As a child, as a teenager, he'd been far too frightened to have said any of this. Worse, at the time he'd worried that his father was right, that Barry was so inadequate and useless that he did deserve the punishment.

Not until he'd seen Joe with Iris had Barry truly understood the depths of what his own father had denied him. That even if Henry Allen had ‘just’ not abused him, Barry _still_ would have been missing the other half of the equation - the love of a father for his child, and everything that came with it.

"I loved you enough to be tough on you," Henry replied, his anger as cold as Barry's was hot. "As a child I hated my father too, for being harsh on me, but as an adult I understand what a precious gift he gave me. I wanted to give you that same gift of discipline. To teach you to hold yourself to a higher standard for success, instead of allowing you to slack off and waste your potential. It was your mother who ruined you, coddling you all the time. I should have rid us both of her years before, so I suppose I do bear some responsibility for how you turned out."

Knowing it was futile, Barry launched himself at the man, clawing for his face. He had no strength left, could barely summon enough speed to be able to understand what Henry was saying, and had zero chance of doing any damage. It didn't matter. He would _not_ sit there on his knees like a cowed child while the bastard trash talked Barry’s mother.

With little effort, Henry knocked Barry aside, smashing him into the side of the car. Somehow Barry stayed upright instead of collapsing into a heap, though he had to clutch at the wall and didn't dare take a single step. At least he would die on his feet.

Hands on his hips, Henry surveyed what he'd done to Barry and shook his head again. "Pathetic. If you didn't bear such a clear resemblance to me, I'd wonder if your mother had betrayed her vows long before she attempted the final betrayal of leaving. Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you. Your powers will heal you, though it will take some time to regrow all the organs. I'm far from done with you, or your pet policeman."

That was far from reassuring. "Don't you... dare... touch Len," Barry gasped. It was an empty demand and they both knew it, with no threat behind the words, but he wouldn't let that go unchallenged.

"I've no intention of physically harming the good detective." Henry's smile was a sick, twisted thing, full of smug sadism. "It will be far more satisfying to see his reaction when he finally catches his killer, and realizes it was you all along."

From the very beginning, Henry had been playing both of them like a virtuoso. Barry felt ill as he realized how closely his father must have been watching him, watching Len, to have learned their habits well enough to set things up so perfectly. The harder Barry had fought to free himself, the tighter the net closed around him, and now he knew why.

The hand pulling the strings was the same person who had attached those strings to him in the first place.

"I imagine by now someone has reported a Flash sighting at the trainyard to the police." Henry tugged his cowl back into place, still smirking. "I give it even odds whether you recover quickly enough to escape, or are caught here at the scene of the crime."

"Why would I be injured if I was the murderer?" As horrible as getting caught would be, this might actually be his best shot at proving his innocence.

"With your powers? They'll have you under sedation before you can say a word." Henry laughed. "I hear they're putting metahuman criminals into medical comas, if they can't be contained. You'll never get the chance to tell your side of the story, and since you’ll heal quickly, they’re unlikely to realize you were ever injured in the first place.”

“The organs…”

“Will be gone. Do you really think I’d be that sloppy? Besides, they’re going to have more interesting evidence to process.” 

Henry flashed forward, caught Barry by the arm, and hauled him across the car to Donovan’s body. Before Barry could even think to stop him, Henry yanked Barry’s glove off, grabbed the dead woman’s hand, and raked her nails across the back of Barry’s hand hard enough to leave welts.

Then he blinked them both out of the car entirely, and dumped Barry into the gravel. Reeling, Barry tried and failed to push himself to his hands and knees. He stared at the furrows in his skin, despair churning like acid in his gut. His DNA was now on Donovan’s body, and he didn’t have the strength left to vibrate back into the car and remove the evidence.

“Careless of you, Barry. Letting her fight back.” Henry made an exaggerated clucking noise and shook his head. “Mistakes like that are what get killers caught.”

With that he was gone. Barry fought the overwhelming urge to curl up and cry from shock, panic, and agony. Were there sirens in the distance, or was that his imagination? He had to get out of here, _now_.

Somehow he staggered to his feet, clinging to the side of the nearest car to stay upright. Then he had to pause to catch his breath, and wait until the world stopped spinning around him.

Those were definitely sirens. Fuck, he was _so screwed_. Even if Barry managed to escape the police now, the moment any CSI ran the skin cells under Donovan’s nails through a DNA test, Barry’s name would pop up and that would be the end of it.

He couldn't stand there and let them take him. Henry was right, the police would shoot him full of enough sedatives to drop an elephant, and probably kill him outright when they realized the sedatives weren’t holding long enough. Barry wouldn’t even have a chance to try to explain. 

Henry was going to get away with it clean.

STAR Labs was on the other side of the city. Barry would never make it there to ask for help. His apartment was even farther, and would be the first place the police looked for him once he was identified.

There was only one chance. Not for getting out of this with any part of his life as Barry Allen intact - that ship had sailed. As soon as that DNA test was run, Barry would be outed as the Flash. Even if by some miracle he managed to avoid the murder charge, he was still a well-known thief. 

But there was one person who _might_ listen to him long enough for him to explain the truth. One person who hated Barry's father nearly as much as Barry did, and might believe that Henry was capable of framing him.

One person in all the world who might have exactly the right powers to help Barry stop the Reverse Flash before he killed anyone else. 

Len.

It was a move his father clearly didn’t believe Barry would make, sacrificing himself by revealing his identity as the Flash to the person who meant most to him. Willingly giving up everything to make sure a murderer was caught as well. That meant Henry might not have accounted for the possibility in all his planning.

Drawing as deep a breath as he could manage, forcing himself to ignore the screaming pain and onset of shock, Barry started running.


	10. Chapter 10

Walking into Mick Rory's workshop always felt to Len like he’d stumbled onto the set of a movie called 'Wet Dreams of a Pyro'. There were racks of every kind of chemical and equipment that could possibly be used to ignite or accelerate fires. Scorch marks on the specially treated ceiling showed where various test fires had gotten out of hand. The walls were covered in photographs of burn patterns from every angle, marked out in sections by which investigation they belonged to. 

It was hot as hell in the converted warehouse, even with all the extra ventilation the Central City Fire Department had installed. Len hadn't been to see his best friend at work since the accelerator explosion, largely for that reason. The moment he stepped inside it felt like he was in danger of literally melting, and he had to use his powers to keep from overheating.

Frost crept over the inside of his clothes, sustained against the heat by his power. It took effort and no little concentration, and Len wasn't sure how long he could keep it up. If Mick would ever answer his damn phone, this would have been a lot easier. They could have met up somewhere else.

The man in question was currently bent over a half-slagged ballistics dummy laid out on a table, examining it through a welding visor like it held the secret to the universe. If he heard Len's footsteps, he gave no sign of it. He picked up a blowtorch and flicked it on, strafing the side of the dummy with it.

The heat was intense, and Len couldn't get close. He paused at the edge of his tolerance, squinting to see what his friend was doing. Finally curiosity got the better of him. "Those things don't give accurate results for burn tests, do they? Ballistic gel is made to simulate the consistency of flesh, not the flammability."

"Nope." Mick turned the torch off and straightened. "There was a fire last night at a gun range. The idiots responsible claim they were shooting dummies and one caught fire somehow, so now I gotta figure out if this stuff could've caused a big enough fire to burn down the building."

"So why the torch?" Len was completely baffled. 

Pulling off his visor, Mick ran a hand over his bald head, scraping sweat away. "If it was a freak occurrence, like some gunpowder residue on the bullet caught fire as it landed, I'll never reproduce it. But if I can't even get this shit to flare up with a torch, no _way_ a bullet started it. It'll catch on fire, but not enough to do what those assholes said it did. "

"Ah." Len leaned back against a different table, tucking his hands in his pockets and grinning. This was why Mick was the best arson investigator the CCFD had. He knew everything there was to know about fires, and was good at thinking outside the box when it came to finding the info he needed and solving problems.

It was also exactly why Len was here to see him. Mick often thought at right angles to the rest of the world, and Len badly needed fresh eyes on his problem. He'd spent most of his life laughing at the people who thought his best friend was stupid because Mick was big, didn't talk much, and sometimes had difficulty finding the words he needed when he did talk.

Mick looked him up and down, dark eyes sharp, and shook his head. "It's too hot in here for you, dumbass. Why didn't you call first? C'mon."

"I did. You never answer." Len followed Mick to the warehouse's back door, where they stepped out into the blessedly cooler air. He barely managed not to gasp in relief. "So you're finally admitting that you know my secret?" 

"Never said I didn't." Leaning back against the wall, Mick pulled out a Zippo and absently played with it, flipping it open and closed again. "You're the one dumb enough to believe I wouldn't figure it out. Lisa was in the hospital for frostbite right after the STAR Labs explosion, and you stopped coming over here at all. Every time you cancel plans with me, Captain Cold shows up all over the news the next day for some big fight. Usually against the Flash. Should I keep going? There's plenty more."

Sighing, Len pinched the bridge of his nose. Mick could be remarkably perceptive, for a guy who was deliberately oblivious from sheer disinterest most of the time. "All right, I'm an idiot," he admitted. "I should have filled you and Joe in on the truth from the beginning. You still could have _told_ me that you'd figured it out."

Mick grinned at him. "Why? That's no fun. You were fucking hilarious, trying to come up with excuses all the time. Haven't seen anything that funny since the crush you had on your firearms instructor at the police academy."

Len flushed, as he always did when that particular mention of his personal idiocy came up. The woman had been a former Olympic Biathlon contender, and Len loved nothing so much as fierce competence mixed with attractiveness. The problem lay in his efforts to get her to notice him. It had all seemed very reasonable when he'd been nineteen. "How many times do I have to get you to promise to never bring that up again?"

"I don't, if there's other people around. Best you're gonna get." 

This was the downside to having a friend who'd known you since you were a young teen. Mick had all the dirt on Len. Of course, Len had all the dirt on Mick, too, but Mick just didn't give a shit.

Mick's grin faded, and he regarded Len with a more serious expression. "Guessing you didn't come risk melting yourself to shoot the shit. Need a sounding board?"

It wasn't the first time Len had used his friend this way, when he and Joe were stuck on a case and going in endless circles. "How much do you know about the Lonely Hearts copycat killings?"

"Only what's in the papers, but I knew there had to be more going on." All traces of levity had fled, and Mick's eyes were dark. "How's the little punk holding up?"

'The little punk' was Mick's affectionate nickname for Barry, who had taken an instant and irrational dislike to Len's best friend the moment they met. It had shocked Len, who’d expected that the traumatized teen would appreciate Mick’s eternal lack of fucks given about anybody’s past or family history. Mick treated people based on their actions in the present, unlike damn near everyone else who loved to judge Barry for his father’s bad deeds.

Mick had found the whole thing utterly hilarious, and pointed out what probably should have been obvious - that the kid was jealous. Throughout the arrest and trial, Len had been giving Barry his undivided attention and support. The boy was so unused to any sort of positive reinforcement, he’d latched onto Len like a limpet. 

When things had settled back into something resembling normal, although Len had continued to welcome Barry into his life, he’d also returned his attention to the rest of the people close to him. Including Mick, who as Len’s best friend had apparently been the one Barry viewed as the biggest threat to his place in Len’s affections. 

Thankfully Barry had gotten over it once Len proved he wasn’t going to abandon the boy, and while the two would probably never be close, they were on friendly terms. 

"Somehow he's simultaneously freaking out in the worst possible way, and also handling it better than anyone could ever expect him to." Len felt a great deal of pride for how Barry was facing his worst fears and refusing to let them destroy him, no matter what the Flash threw at him.

Quickly Len filled Mick in on the details of the case, including what had been going on between Captain Cold and the Flash. He couldn't quite stop his bitterness from leaking through. It was ridiculous for him to feel betrayed by the escalation from harmless thief to merciless killer, but he did. Len kept thinking of all the times he could have tried a _little_ harder to beat the Flash early on, and maybe none of the murders now would be happening.

Dueling with the thief had felt like a welcome break from the desperate need to stop people from being hurt. If he was being honest with himself, Len had looked forward to those notes from the Flash, enjoyed the chase when nothing was at stake but a drop in the bucket of a rich person’s fortune. 

Plus, there was the flirting. As with his firearms instructor so long ago, Len was drawn to the thief’s confidence and competence, despite his disdain for what the meta chose to do with his power. That ripped body was certainly attractive, and what Len could see of his face suggested he was good-looking. Having the Flash so clearly interested in Len had been flattering, and he’d lapped up the attention. 

And now look where they were. In this case it was fool him once, shame on him. 

When he was finished catching Mick up on current events, the man was silent for a long time. Len let him be, knowing his friend was turning all the angles over in his mind. Finally Mick heaved a great sigh. "Heavy shit," was his considered opinion.

Len snorted at the understatement. "What's your gut say?"

"I dunno, buddy." Mick's frown was all but etched onto his face, lines so deep they looked chiseled. "If it is the Flash, I got no idea how you're ever gonna catch him. He's toying with you."

" _If_?" Len stared at him. "Have you not heard a word I just said?"

"Something doesn't sit right." Mick stopped playing with the lighter, holding it open and staring into the flame. "Arsonists, the ones that do it 'cause they love the fire, not for money... they don't pop up outta nowhere. You go back through their history, there's always signs. They start small. Work their way up. They don't jump straight to burning buildings down from nothing. Gotta figure serial killers are the same."

Len was one of only a handful of people alive who knew how personal those words were from his friend. Mick had sought help for his obsession after accidentally setting a house fire as a kid that nearly killed his parents. That was how he and Len had met, in the group counselling sessions Len had been forced to attend after his father died in the line of duty.

A lot of professional help and a lucky encounter with a sympathetic fire chief had brought Mick where he was today, where he could indulge his love of fire almost endlessly in a productive way. Without that, he could easily have been one of the arsonists he spoke of.

"Flash didn't start killing from nothing," Len pointed out. "He's been increasingly active as a thief for the past year. Probably was doing the same long before that, just not _as_ the Flash until he got his powers."

“But he doesn’t hurt people,” Mick countered. “Media’s always all over that. Like he’s some kinda Robin Hood, stealing from the big bad rich guys, even though there’s no sign he does anything with the money but keep it.”

This was one of Barry’s main arguments for why the killer couldn’t be the Flash, too. And the truth was, if the speedster factor wasn’t involved, Flash would never have been on Len’s radar as a suspect for exactly this reason. He didn’t fit the serial killer profile.

Evidence didn’t lie, however, and all the evidence said the Flash was the culprit. Len’s job was to figure out the motive from there, not dismiss the facts because he couldn’t think of a motive.

Mick wasn’t done yet, though. “Anyway, you've got damn good instincts. Your gut is why you and Joe solve a lot of cases. You wouldn't have flirted with the Flash if you thought he was dangerous."

"I never said I flirted with him." Len fought off another flush. Mick laughed.

"Yeah, but you said he flirted with _you_ , and you got that look in your eyes, and now you're all mad like it personally offends you that he's maybe gone killer."

Again, this was the problem with a friend who'd known you most of your life. Mick was far too good at reading him - and at pushing his buttons. Len tried not to be sour about it. "All right, yes, I thought he wasn't so bad. My instincts are not infallible. Clearly, in this case. There is no other explanation."

Mick flipped the lighter closed again, and shook his head. "Find the motive, you find your crook. That's true in both our jobs. From what you're saying, Flash has had all the opportunities, but what's his motive? He plays with you in good fun for a year, then suddenly this? Why target the punk by copying his fucker of a father?"

All of that was true, and it was the glaring hole in this case that Len kept tripping over. _Why_? Why was the Flash doing this? Why now, and not before? Why act like a copycat? Why torment Barry?

Why fight so hard to plead his innocence, then turn around and thumb his nose at Len with things like leaving the heart in the safe he'd just robbed?

"None of it makes any sense," he acknowledged. "That's the whole damn problem. There's no leads, no clues, no connections to follow. I feel like I'm bashing my head against a brick wall."

"Wish I could help more, but I got nothin' on this one." Mick shrugged. "Sorry, partner."

"Not your fault." Len sighed. He'd thought maybe Mick would see something he'd missed, but he was well aware he'd been hoping for a miracle. "If you think of anything, you know how to reach me. And... thanks. For keeping my secret, and not pushing me about it. Though I still say you _could_ have told me when you figured it out."

"That's what partners are for." Mick smirked at him, and Len smiled in return.

It really was a shame they'd never worked out as a romantic relationship. They'd tried, a couple of times, but it always ended in disaster and them not speaking for a while. They did much better as the kind of friends who expected to give each other grief at all times, not lovers who tried to support and understand each other. Being opposites was what made them work.

Len left his friend to his job, and headed home. Halfway there he got an emergency call that had him pulling out his siren and tearing his way across the city to the train yards.

Flash had been spotted again, and a new body had been found. Still warm, rigor mortis not yet set in, which meant it wasn’t the woman whose heart was in the safe.

Victim number four was none other than the wife of the man the Flash had robbed earlier that week, supposedly out of the city on her honeymoon. Jaden Donovan had been strapped to a steel table inside an empty train car. Since they knew this was a Flash killing, the Medical Examiner had cut her open right on site to check her organs. Donovan's heart was missing as per usual, and there was no sign of it.

They did get one lucky break. Liebowitz, the CSI tech on duty, had found what looked like skin cells under the victim’s fingernails. This was the first time one of the victims had been able to put up any kind of fight, possibly because the Flash had been distracted dealing with the husband as well.

 _Finally_ , the bastard had made a mistake. If his DNA was anywhere on record, they would know the killer’s true identity by morning. Even if they didn’t get a hit, it was indisputable physical evidence that would tie their suspect to the murder if and when they did catch him.

The bad news was that the Flash was escalating at a rapidly increasing rate. There’d been less time between the murder of Mardon and the Jane Doe than there had been between Wilson and Mardon, and now only days between the Jane Doe and Donovan. At this pace, the next victim would be found tomorrow.

Worse, Len had a sick feeling that when Charles Donovan was finally located, it would be as a body, either here or on the island he’d been scheduled to travel to with his new wife. That made this the first known multiple killing.

One tiny bright note was that if Flash had indeed killed a second man, it was a stronger argument for a copycat. The original Lonely Hearts Killer had no known male victims. Flash might have killed Mardon out of anger that the Weather Wizard had dared to hurt Len before Flash was done with him, but Donovan hadn’t done anything to Len or Barry.

As Len dragged himself into his house at last, hours after he should have gotten home, he had never felt so tired. It was the soul-deep weariness of knowing there was far worse to come, and he had no way of preventing it. 

Even if the DNA did pop out a match, knowing the Flash’s identity might not be enough. It would potentially give them _one_ chance to catch the asshole unaware, going about his daily life. Unless they got very, _very_ lucky, the Flash was flat out unstoppable. How could Len ever hope to catch him?

How many more would die, because he couldn't find a way?

He slunk into his kitchen and wrenched the fridge door open, diving in for one of the many bottles of iced coffee he kept on hand. It was one of the few things he could drink without problems, already cold enough that his powers didn't try to turn it to ice, but made to be delicious at that temperature. At this point, he needed the caffeine to keep him awake long enough to hit the shower before he fell into bed.

A soft sound behind him alerted him that he wasn't alone. Suddenly wide awake, Len spun and put his back to the counter, scolding himself for being complacent. Just because this was his house didn't mean it was automatically safe. Damn it, he _knew_ the Flash was aware of his real identity. The bastard had already been in his home once.

Sure enough, the speedster sat at his kitchen table, as cool and casual as if he owned the place. He had his arms stretched out and crossed on the table before him, as if he'd been resting his head on them when Len came in. At least that made Len feel slightly better about not noticing the fact that he wasn't alone in the damn room.

Len brought his hands up, calling on his powers. He fully expected the Flash would have him pinned and subdued long before Len could throw a shot... but the other meta didn't move. In fact, Flash raised _his_ hands as if surrendering, and the expression in his eyes was one of weary resignation, not malicious taunting.

That was when Len realized he could _see the man's eyes_. Flash wasn't blurring his features, allowing Len to get a good look at him for the first time. The mask still obscured too much for Len to be able to make a composite sketch later, but something tugged at his subconscious. He knew those eyes, damn it. He'd seen them before, many times.

Could the Flash be another cop? Could Len have been harbouring a thief and a killer in his department this whole time?

"I'm not here to fight." Flash wasn't blurring his voice either, but it was raspy and broken, hard to make out. If forced to guess, Len would say it sounded like he’d been screaming until his voice had given out. What the hell?

"Planning to come along quietly? That'll be a nice change." Len raised an eyebrow at him. He flat out didn't know what the fuck to make of this. 

Every instinct he had was shouting at him to freeze the bastard where he sat, not give Flash a chance to wiggle out of this again - but he knew far too well that his ice would never land. Flash would run, like he always ran, and Len would have wasted the power. He had to play this smart, if he was to have any chance at all.

"I need your help." Flash gave him a crooked smile. "And yes, I'm aware you'd much rather walk into a furnace than help me, at the moment. I'm telling you, it's _not me_. I’m being set up."

"Sell it to someone who's buying," Len retorted. "If I had a dollar for every perp who insisted he was being framed, I'd have retired years ago and be living in the Bahamas."

Flash laughed, a short, choppy sound with little amusement. "No, you wouldn't. You hated the heat long before you became Captain Cold. And you'd go crazy without a case to work on, you'd be bored to death in a week."

It was annoying that the man spoke as if he knew Len well, but he wasn’t entirely wrong. "Alaska, then. Point is, you're full of shit. All the evidence says a speedster is responsible. Far too much to be faked."

"I never said it wasn't a speedster. I said it's not _me_."

That brought Len up short. He hesitated, convinced this was just another mind game, but at the same time those damn ‘why’ questions kept taunting him. "Metahuman powers don't seem to duplicate. They're too dependent on the situation the person was in at the time of the accelerator explosion."

"Actually, that’s not entirely true." Flash tilted his head. "Both of the Mardon brothers had weather manipulation abilities."

"How the hell do you know about Clyde Mardon?" Clyde had been the first known metahuman arrest, and the police had kept it under _tight_ wraps. At the time, they'd had no idea they were about to hit an epidemic of superpowered criminals, and hadn't wanted to cause panic among the citizens.

"I'm starting to think there must be a genetic component, as well as an environmental one." Flash shrugged, and dropped his hands back down to the table. Len tensed, but the meta still made no move to attack.

"Are you saying this alleged other speedster, who's never been seen or heard of before in the entire year since STAR Labs exploded, happens to be related to you?" Len was skeptical of such a massive coincidence, and it showed. 

Yet his mind kept returning to his conversation with Mick, and the unanswerable questions that surrounded this whole case. _Why_? Why any of it?

"I'm _saying_ that it's exactly who I've been afraid it is since this whole fucking mess started." Flash reached up and grabbed his cowl, pushing it off his face and allowing it to fall at his back. He stared at Len with that hauntingly familiar gaze, now set in a context Len couldn't possibly mistake.

Barry Allen looked him straight in the eyes, trembling and scared, pleading for Len's help the way he’d done once before in this very house, ten years ago. 

"It’s not a copycat, Len. The killer is and always has been my father."


	11. Chapter 11

Shock held Len still for a long moment, his mind spinning in circles as he stared. " _Barry_?" Even saying the name, he couldn't make himself believe it.

Barry couldn't be the Flash. _Could not be._ It was ridiculous on so many levels, Len couldn't even count them all. "Bullshit," he exclaimed. "If this is your idea of a joke, it's a lousy one."

It was Barry's turn to stare in disbelief. "You think I would _joke_ about this? About my father killing people?"

No, that was definitely not something Barry would do. Ever. He had a sly sense of humour, and god knew he loved tweaking Len's tail in particular, but Henry Allen was never a joke. Especially under the circumstances. 

Despite himself, Len's mind jumped to the conversation he'd had with Henry in prison. To his own thoughts that the only way Henry could be innocent was if Barry had been the killer all along. Setting his father up to take the fall. Len had dismissed the idea instantly, knowing in his gut that Barry was the victim, not the culprit.

But if Barry was the Flash, and Flash was the killer...

No. That was the one impossibility Len couldn't swallow. No matter how bad his instincts had been, he flatly refused to believe that Barry Allen was a vicious murderer. If Barry was a good enough actor to fake his panic and terror upon seeing the heart in the safe, Len would eat his damn badge and hang up his gun forever.

Being the Flash did explain all of Barry's insane protests, against all evidence, that the lightning thief wasn’t the culprit. Not to mention why the Flash had been so desperate to convince Cold of his innocence. And the reason the Flash would try to take a lightning bolt for him, for that matter, as well as why Flash had chosen to text Barry to come help after that fight.

Looking back over it, Len felt like an idiot for not realizing the truth. The way Flash always teased him, as if they were close personal friends - Len had assumed the speedster was stalking him. Then there were all the equally teasing comments from Barry, like that quip about his parka hanging in his office.

The only reason Len had never caught on was his unshakable belief that Barry was a good kid. That he'd mended his ways, learned his lesson, and couldn't possibly be stealing millions of dollars worth of loot. 

That, and the flirting. Len was aware Barry'd had a bad crush on him as a teenager, but he thought the boy had grown out of it by the time he went off to college. It was incredibly difficult for him to process that the man he'd been flirting with for the last year, the man who had kissed him breathless on that rooftop, was the same kid he'd viewed as family for the past ten years.

As the reality of it sank in, the fury of betrayal came along for the ride. "I trusted you, Barry. I've had your back for years, I've vouched for you to Singh, I've stuck my neck out for you I don't even know how many times. How could you do this?"

"It's not me," Barry protested again, frantic to make Len believe him. "I swear to you, Len. I haven't hurt anyone!" 

"I accept that you're not the killer," Len growled. "Maybe I'm letting sentiment cloud my judgement, maybe you've got me fooled along with everyone else. But if you're a heartless murderer, I might as well hand in my badge because I'm goddamn useless as a detective. That doesn't change the fact that you've been stealing this whole time. How did you _expect_ me to react?"

"Badly," Barry acknowledged, his ire draining away and leaving what looked like exhaustion and pain in its place. "Not... it wasn't the _whole_ time. Just since I've been the Flash."

"You think I'm going to believe anything you say to me, now?" Len flexed his hands, listening to ice crackle as the movement broke the coating on his fingers. High emotions always boosted his powers, even as it decimated his control over them. His current state of rage definitely counted as highly emotional. It was all he could do not to freeze the whole damn room. 

All this time, Barry had been lying to him. Even if it was 'only' for the last year, it still shattered the trust Len had placed in the younger man. Every time Captain Cold and the Flash had squared off, Barry had known exactly who he was facing, exactly what a betrayal he was committing. He'd looked Len in the eyes, during the heists, and then again the next day at work, and never once flinched at his own two-faced lies.

But there was a great deal more at stake than his own hurt feelings. People were dying, and if the Flash wasn't responsible, Len needed a new trail to follow, _fast_. Before the next victim was taken, and at this rate, that could happen any moment.

Pushing away from the counter, he grabbed the chair opposite Barry and sat down, eyeing the younger man warily. It was disconcerting to see Barry sitting there in the Flash suit, two opposite sides of Len's life somehow fused together in jarring juxtaposition. 

"Don't think we're done talking about your stealing," Len warned, pointing a finger at Barry. "But the murders are my higher priority. While I'm willing to consider the idea that there could be a second speedster, it can't be your father. He's safely in Iron Heights, I told you, I saw him myself yesterday."

"Yeah?" Barry gave him a very warped smile. "And I can walk through walls."

That made Len sit back, his mind spinning with the implications. If the Flash could walk through walls, presumably so could the unknown speedster who was murdering people and pinning it on the Flash.

'Pinned it on'. That was how Henry Allen had referred to it, in Len's conversation with him. "Allen is in the Solitary Housing Unit," he said slowly, thinking it through as he went. "He doesn't have eyes on him most of the time. He knows the prison schedule, and it's more predictable in the SHU. As long as he's always back when he knows they'll be checking on him, like mealtimes, it's the perfect alibi." 

If the Lonely Hearts Killer was able to waltz in and out of prison as he pleased, that changed _everything_. All the 'why' question were instantly answered - why the killer was targeting Barry and Len, why the murderer was a 'copycat', even the new question of why the Flash was being set up to take the fall. 

Hell, this was an ideal situation for Allen. He could commit more murders _and_ get himself cleared of having ever been the killer in the first place, thereby leaving him free to kill all the more. No wonder he'd been so goddamn smug.

"They do still perform random eyes-on checks, though." Len frowned. "The killer must have been following both of us extensively for some time, to have learned our patterns and habits this well. Not to mention our secret identities. Surely he'd have been caught out at some point."

"So all he has to do is threaten the guard." Barry rubbed at his face, and Len couldn't remember ever seeing him so exhausted. "Trust me, having your appendix ripped out and dangled in front of you is a hell of an effective intimidation tactic."

That sounded bizarrely like the voice of experience talking. Len frowned at him. "That's an oddly specific example. He's been taking hearts, not..."

"How do you think I know it was him?" Barry cut him off, bitter. "We fought, and he was taunting me. Toying with me." 

The younger man's hands were shaking, Len noted. In fact, his whole body was shaking, but his hands were the most noticeable. The way his voice sounded like he'd been screaming... the pain and exhaustion and despair in his expression... Len finally set aside his own distrust and betrayal enough to put the pieces together into a sickening whole. 

"Why the hell would he take your appendix?" It didn’t fit any part of the Lonely Hearts profile.

"To hurt me. To slow me down. To prove he's better than me." Barry's shoulders slumped, and he wrapped his arms around his torso as if he was cold. "All of the above, and then some. It wasn't all he took, either. He's better at phasing through solid objects than I am. Had a lot of practice, getting in and out of his cell, I guess."

"Not all he took?" Len stared at Barry, heart in his throat. "Christ, Barry, you're likely bleeding internally. We need to get you to a hospital."

"I heal fast," Barry told him. "Including things a normal person wouldn't heal at all. Reverse Flash seemed certain I wouldn't die from what he did. Much as I hate to take the bastard at his word, he _wants_ me to survive and suffer. He was being very careful."

"Reverse Flash?"

Barry laughed, a harsh sound that seemed to rasp in his throat. "I'm sure as fuck not calling him 'dad'. I hate it when you call him 'Allen', makes it feel too much like you're talking about me. Reverse Flash is how he referred to himself before he revealed who he was. Good enough."

Len considered the young man across the table. As angry as he was about Barry's betrayal, he'd been looking out for the kid for ten years, and it wasn't like he _wanted_ to shake that habit of concern. The months Barry had spent in the hospital after the lightning strike had been among the worst of Len's life. Like Barry, Len wasn't willing to trust Henry Allen's word that his attacks wouldn't prove fatal, and his son would be okay.

The man had a decidedly warped outlook on what constituted 'okay' for his child, considering the hell he'd put Barry through for the first fifteen years of his life.

"What else did he take?" Len demanded. "And how the hell did you make it to my house?"

"Pretty much by my equivalent of crawling the whole way." Barry sighed, and propped his head in his hands as if he was too weary to hold it up any longer. "I wasn't stopping to examine the organs, but I think... appendix, he identified that one. Kidney, spleen, maybe part of my liver." He winced, and pressed a hand against his chest. "I thought he _was_ going for my heart, at the end there, but he took a lung instead."

"A _lung_?" That was absolutely the last straw. Len didn't care how good Barry's healing was, he was not leaving the younger man to just 'sleep off' something this serious. "You're going to the hospital. Don't bother arguing with me. I will knock you out and carry you there myself if I have to. Right now, I don't think you could stop me."

"I don't think I could either," Barry agreed with a faint smile. "But a hospital can't help. Even aside from the fact that it would out me as the Flash, they don't have the equipment necessary to be able to monitor me. Joe told me when I was in the coma they kept thinking my heart was stopping, but I'm pretty sure it was beating too fast for the machine to register." He paused, then added thoughtfully, "Take me to STAR Labs. Caitlin will know what to do, and she's got the right equipment to help."

"STAR Labs?" Len's eyebrows shot up. "They're the ones responsible for this whole mess in the first place. Since when are you on a first name basis with anyone there?" 

Still, he was willing to follow the suggestion if Barry thought they could somehow help. He offered a hand up, which Barry took, and when he was on his feet Len slung Barry's arm over his shoulders to help keep him there. He wound his own arm around Barry's waist in turn, supporting him as they headed for the garage. 

It was clear that Barry needed the help, stumbling over nothing and occasionally sagging as though his knees gave out on him. It was disturbingly easy to hold him up. The young man's body was solid muscle beneath the suit, not surprising with all the running he did, but that made it all the more worrying that he felt so light.

"Don't be too hard on them." Barry closed his eyes, resting his head against Len's shoulder. If the cold that must have been radiating off Len through his thin shirt bothered Barry, he showed no evidence of it. "Caitlin and Cisco are good people. The explosion was an accident, and they've been working hard to try to help fix things ever since. They caught me trying to break in before I got good at it, and we made a deal. They needed a metahuman to study, and I needed them not to turn me in to the police. It worked out."

Len grunted in response, unwilling to commit to a promise not to be hard on people who were accessories to every crime the Flash had committed, if they'd known his identity all along. If they could safely help Barry, he'd hold his tongue for now and make up his mind when he had the full story.

Somehow they made it to the beat-up sedan Len kept for stakeouts and other situations where his bike wouldn't be appropriate. Len maneuvered Barry into the passenger seat and got him buckled in. Barry's eyes were closed, and judging by the way he slumped against the door after Len closed it, he was close to passing out. When Len climbed into the driver's side and started the engine, however, Barry's eyes fluttered open and he turned to face him with an obvious effort.

"Been a while since I rode in a car." Barry managed a half-smile, the expression wobbly but with genuine amusement. "I tried to take the bus out to Pine Ridge when you called me, but it was so damn _slow_."

The image of the Flash taking public transit was funny as hell, if Len thought of the speedster only in context of his rival and not as Barry. Actually, it was funny even with Barry in the picture - the younger man had always been impatient, but now that he thought about it, that impatience had grown leaps and bounds since the accelerator explosion. Small wonder.

"The bike would have been faster, but probably still not fast enough to suit you," he said, backing out of the garage and heading off down the street. "Besides, I don't think you're in any shape to hang on to me right now."

"Probably not." Barry grimaced, and sighed as he leaned his head against the window again. "I miss riding with you, though. You used to take me out sometimes on the weekends. Haven't done that in a long time."

"You're the one who stopped accepting my invitations," Len pointed out. Traffic was light this late at night, so he didn't put his siren out, but he kept a close eye on Barry's condition. If it worsened, he wasn't above using his authority as a cop to get to STAR Labs faster.

"Yeah." Barry's smile this time was both nostalgic and self-deprecating. "I had my reasons. Still miss it, though."

It was on the tip of Len's tongue to say there was nothing stopping them from doing it again sometime, when reality kicked him in the ass and reminded him that there was indeed a good reason why they couldn't. Chances were good he'd be arresting Barry shortly. It was just a question of whether it happened before or after they worked together to stop Henry Allen's new killing spree. 

Acid burning in his throat at the reminder, Len turned his attention back where it belonged, on the murders. "Why were you fighting him in the first place? Were you chasing him down on your own?" 

That would make some sense. Catching the real killer was about the only way the Flash could have hoped to prove his innocence without Barry revealing himself to Len.

"The bastard called me out," Barry explained, mouth twisting into a grimace. "He's the one who paid the Flash for the Pine Ridge job in the first place, and I assume arranged things so I'd likely be the CSI you'd call. Then today he contacted me from the same email, sent me a livestream of him setting up to kill that poor girl. He told me where he was, and challenged me to come stop him."

"Why the hell didn't you call me?" If Barry had known there was another victim, why hadn't he reached out for backup? He had to be talking about the train yard murder. "Were you so determined to protect your identity as the Flash that you were willing to risk that woman's life?"

"Are you kidding me?" Barry stared at him. "Len, the whole thing took place at superspeed. Maybe two minutes from the moment I got the email to the moment he left me for the police, tops."

Len grimaced. He was still playing catchup in terms of thinking everything through, and hadn't yet reached the logical conclusion that two speedsters battling was going to be something nobody else could even see, let alone participate in. Which brought up a new question. "You came to ask for my help. How exactly am I going to be able to help you?"

"He's faster than I am. Stronger." The despair in Barry's voice was also written large in his expressive eyes. "I can't stop him alone. But your ice does slow me down, so it should do the same to him. If I can lead him into a trap, you can hit him hard enough to make it possible for me to finish him off."

Chills ran down Len's spine, and not the good kind. "Barry, I am _not_ helping you murder someone. Not even your monster of a father."

"You've killed suspects before, I know you have." Barry retorted. "I know it's not exactly easy for you, but it does happen."

"When there's no other choice." Len shook his head. "I don't go in planning to do it. It's never premeditated, it's forced by extreme circumstances."

"So what's your alternative, exactly?" Barry sat up straighter and glared at him. "How do you propose to deal with him? Prison can't hold him, he's already proved that. My metabolism runs as fast as I do, sedatives barely work on me, so it would be the same for him. He's so much faster, I'm not even sure it would be possible to put him in a medical coma like we've been doing with other criminal metas. D'you think I _want_ to be a killer? Become more like him? There is no other way!"

There was nothing Len could say to argue any of those points, so he kept quiet. That proved to be a mistake - Barry's voice rose with each word, impassioned and desperate, and finally his voice cracked and he started coughing. The force of the spasms doubled him over, his shoulders shaking as he struggled for air. 

Alarmed, Len reached out and rubbed Barry's back, trying to get him to relax. "Barry? Barry! Breathe, damn it."

The coughing eased, but the tiny, gasping breaths that replaced it weren't an improvement. Barry clutched at the sides of his chest, as if they hurt, and when Len glanced over he could see the pulse fluttering wildly in Barry's throat.

Whatever was happening, it was very bad. With massive internal trauma like Barry had suffered, 'very bad' could be a fatal understatement. They were still at least ten minutes away from STAR Labs at this pace. Cursing, Len flipped open the glove box, pulled out his portable siren, and slapped it on the dash. 

As it wailed, clearing the roads ahead, Len floored the gas and hoped these unknown people at STAR Labs really could do something to help. Hell, he hoped they were still there at all, this late at night. Otherwise, Barry's refusal to go to the hospital might make the point of whether or not Len should arrest him entirely moot.

Betrayal or not, Barry was family. If he died, Len would be devastated. Right now, all he could do was pray - a skill he'd lost a long time ago.


	12. Chapter 12

It felt like the entire universe shrank down into one massive, condensed ball of agony in Barry's chest as he struggled to breathe. Impossibly, this felt even worse than when Reverse Flash had ripped his lung out in the first place. Whatever was happening, it definitely wasn't good.

Distantly he was aware of Len calling his name, trying to get his attention. A shock of cold across the back of his neck made him try to gasp, but every breath he struggled to take seemed to bring less air. Black spots danced in front of his eyes, and the world began to fade from the edges in.

Everything got jumbled after that. Barry was vaguely aware of a lot of shouting, jostling movement, and chaos around him. His healing was barely staying ahead of the oxygen deprivation, causing him to drift in and out of awareness, but it would buy him minutes at most.

A sharp, stabbing pain in his chest made him thrash with terror, convinced Henry was attacking him again. Strong, gloved hands grabbed him by the shoulders and pinned him down. "Barry, stay still! We're trying to help you."

Len, the barely-conscious part of him recognized. Even through the gloves, Barry could feel the icy chill of the other meta's power creeping over his arms. He forced himself to relax as much as panic and pain would let him, as the stabbing pain came again, and again.

"Damn it," Caitlin exclaimed, the first time he’d ever heard her swear. "He's showing symptoms of a pneumothorax - a collapsed lung - but I can't find the air pocket to relieve it."

"Shit." Len sounded shaken. "First he loses one lung, and now the other's collapsed?"

"Lost a lung? How the hell did he..."

"Focus, Cisco! Is the imager ready?"

"Yeah, all fired up, let's get him in there."

More chaos, and Barry started to lose track of reality, everything fading as his over-stressed powers continued to lose ground in the battle against death. 

"God damn it, Barry." Len’s voice reached him as if from miles away. "Don't you _dare_ fucking die on me, do you hear me? You don't get to drop a bomb on me like this and then sail off into the sunset. I’m not done with you."

It should have sounded like a threat, not a reason to fight to hold on. But Barry could hear the desperate worry in Len's voice, feel Len's hands shaking against his shoulders, sense the cold intensify as Len's fear spiked. 

Somehow, Barry found the strength to lift one hand to place over Len's - the closest he could come to the apology he wished he could make.

Something pressed around his mouth and nose, followed by a blast of air that forced its way into his lungs. Barry gasped, then gasped again as he realized he _was_ getting the air in. That turned into another coughing fit, but the air kept pushing its way back in between spasms, until finally the coughing eased.

Panting, Barry opened his eyes and got a blurry image of Len, Caitlin, and Cisco leaning over him. He was prone in the hospital bed Caitlin kept tucked away in a room at the side of her lab. He'd needed it a few times when he was first testing his speed and learning what his limits were, which was how they'd found out about his healing ability. 

Caitlin was the first to notice he was looking. "Welcome back, Mr. Allen. You gave us quite the scare." Her attempt at her usual frosty disdain was marred by her brilliant, relieved smile.

She lifted the mask away from Barry's face, and Len frowned. "Is that safe yet?"

"Too much pressure could cause a rupture in the lung tissue, letting air into the chest cavity and causing the pneumothorax condition I thought he had to start with." Caitlin shook her head and spoke to Barry. "Your body had already adjusted to having one lung and the other missing organs. Once they started growing in, the shifting put pressure on your healthy lung, and the new one refused to inflate. Regrowing organs isn't something the body is designed to do efficiently. You should be fine, now, but let me know immediately if you experience any further difficulty breathing, or any pain in your torso."

"Yes, ma'am," Barry croaked. His voice had been hoarse from screaming when he spoke to Len, but now it was barely more than a rasp. Even that short sentence threatened to make him start coughing again.

"Got something for you, buddy." Cisco approached with an oversized glass full of the world's least appealing milkshake. Barry groaned, recognizing one of the super protein shakes Cisco and Caitlin had come up with to help with Barry's insane caloric needs. It tasted even worse than it looked. The nutrient bars they'd made later were an improvement, pressed sawdust instead of liquid crap, but the shakes were also more effective.

"Not hungry," he mumbled, repulsed by the idea of trying to eat. After everything that had happened tonight, he was reasonably sure he'd throw it right back up again, anyway.

"Actually, you're literally starving," Caitlin scolded him. "Your body is consuming itself, trying to keep up with the energy demands of your healing. You're going to drink until you can't hold another drop, and I'm going to give you a fluid IV as well."

Grimacing, Barry accepted the glass from Cisco. Holding his breath, he gulped it down as fast as he could. To the others it would seem like the sludge disappeared instantly, but _he_ was still aware of how long it took to drink. Shuddering at the aftertaste, he let Cisco take the glass back and refill it.

"He'll be all right now?" Len asked, watching them administer to Barry with a sharp gaze.

"Who's this guy, again?" Cisco wanted to know, earning himself a sideways look from Len.

Barry chuckled. The shake had soothed his throat a bit, so he was able to make the introductions. "Dr. Caitlin Snow, Cisco Ramon, meet Lieutenant Detective Leonard Snart."

Snapping his fingers, Cisco pointed at Len. "Dude! You're the guy Barry's always talking about."

"Oh, am I?" Len arched an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth turning down.

Uncertain why that made Len unhappy, Barry elaborated. "Not _always_. I asked them for help about how to get you to stop trying to arrest the Flash, after the first murder, that's all."

"That, and more than a few other times," Cisco teased him. "Trust me, you've mentioned the detective who saved you as a kid. Repeatedly."

Len's frown eased, and Barry realized the older man must have thought Barry had told the STAR Labs duo about his identity as Captain Cold. Len shook his head. "Barry saved himself, back then. I only helped."

Feeling better, Barry tried to sit up, and immediately the room spun around him. He collapsed back onto the pillow, squeezing his eyes shut in a futile effort to make the world stop moving. "Caitlin? I'm really dizzy."

"That's the hunger and exhaustion." There was a sharp pinch as she inserted an IV needle into his inner elbow, then taped it in place. "Frankly I'm shocked you're conscious at all. I think your healing has grown significantly more powerful since the last time we tested it. Even so, you should rest if you can."

"Not sure I'm gonna have a lot of choice." Now that he'd closed his eyes, Barry found it incredibly difficult to will them open again. He managed it, peering at Len. "We need to talk, plan out how we're going to deal with the Reverse Flash..."

"It can wait until you're not an inch from death, Barry." Len shook his head. His tone was scolding, and there was anger lurking in his eyes - it was clear Barry was far from forgiven for being the Flash. Might never be forgiven, in fact. But Len cared about his well-being, and that concern won out. "Get some sleep. I'm not going anywhere."

Barry wasn't entirely sure if that was meant as a threat or a promise. Possibly both. Nodding, he shifted to lie more comfortably on the pillows, careful not to jostle the IV, and let the darkness carry him away.

* * *

Quiet murmuring drew Barry slowly out of sleep. He was warm and cozy in a tangle of blankets, and though he couldn't make out what the voice was saying, it was familiar and comforting. Dragging himself awake was always difficult for Barry at the best of times, let alone when he was so exhausted. 

The voice rose sharply in shock, making it identifiable as Len. "It's _whose_?"

Prying his eyes open, Barry found himself still in the STAR Labs makeshift infirmary, lying on his side in the bed. The IV had been removed at some point, so Caitlin must have decided his glucose levels were safe again. He did feel much better, though he wasn’t in any rush to get up.

Len was sitting in a chair in the corner, talking on his phone, and hadn't yet noticed Barry was awake. His brow was furrowed, mouth a hard slash as he pressed his lips together, listening to whoever was on the other end of the line.

He shook his head, emphatically, as if the person on the other end could see him. "That's ridiculous. Look, it's clear the killer has been targeting Barry from the start. The skin cells must have been planted." A pause, and he blew out a sharp breath. "I don't care what Liebowitz says. For god's sake, Joe, you can't really believe... no, I agree. The rest of the department will be harder to convince."

Len glanced over, and raised an eyebrow when he saw Barry was watching. He held up one finger in a 'wait' gesture. "He’s with me. He was attacked by the killer, but got away and ran to me for help. At this point, I think the best thing we can do is for him to stay under Captain Cold's protection.”

Joe said something else, and Len sighed. “We'll clear his name when we catch the real culprit. Let me know if any clues turn up that don't point to Barry, and be careful, Joe. You were involved in arresting Henry Allen as well. If Barry and I are out of reach, the killer may turn on you instead."

Len shut off his phone and looked at Barry. "You're officially a wanted man. There's an APB out for you and every cop in the city is on the lookout. Better not poke your head out of STAR Labs, for now. At least you have no known association with this place, so nobody will be searching here for you."

"You covered for me." Barry half thought he must have dreamed that part. "Why did you do that?"

"Was I wrong?" Len gave him a hard look. “I won’t say there was never a doubt in my mind. Liebowitz insists there was blood with the skin cells in a way that would only happen if she actually clawed her nails across you directly. Are you telling me she did?”

"What? No." Barry eased himself up to sit, wanting to be able to look Len in the eyes. "I mean, kind of. After he subdued me, Reverse Flash grabbed my arm and raked her nails over the back of my hand." 

He glanced down, but the shallow welts had long since healed, leaving pristine skin behind. "This is the point of his entire plan. Setting me up to take the fall, and making you turn on me in the process."

"Yeah, I'd figured that part out." Len crossed his ankle over his knee, leaning back in his chair and flipping his phone over and over. "This is the perfect opportunity for him to take revenge _and_ get himself out of jail. With enough evidence 'proving' you're the Lonely Hearts Killer, people will believe it was you all along, and he'll be exonerated. The helpless victim of your devious schemes, even at that young age."

God, Barry hadn't thought that far ahead. If even Len had had a moment of doubt, the rest of the world would be happy to believe Barry had been the killer all along. He shuddered, horrified by the idea of his father walking free again. It was all too possible. 

Not that jail was doing anything to stop him from walking free right now. Taking a deep breath, Barry squared his shoulders. "I won't let that happen. This is the one move I don't think he's anticipated - me voluntarily coming clean to you, turning myself in for the chance to stop him. He can't imagine being selfless like that, so he doesn't think I would, either."

"Are you? Turning yourself in?" Len narrowed his eyes. "You don't really think I'm going to let you walk away after this and keep stealing, do you?"

"No, of course not." Barry shook his head. "I know you're going to arrest me, it's just a question of when. All I'm asking is that you help me bring my father down first, and then I'll go quietly. I won't fight, I won't try to run away, and I won't escape from prison. I promise."

Len's expression turned sour. "You've already broken one promise to me. What makes you think I'm going to believe another one? If I was smart, I'd have ordered Dr. Snow to put something in that IV to keep you out, and arrested you here and now."

That was a possibility that hadn't even occurred to Barry. He was damn lucky Len was too decent a person to stab him in the back like that.

The way Barry had stabbed Len in the back, by being the Flash.

"Technically, I didn't break my promise," Barry said. Len gave him a disbelieving look, and Barry winced. "I didn't say I would stop stealing. I said I had learned my lesson. And I did. I never forgot what you told me, that stealing from that mall store was no different than picking the owner’s pockets. That I was hurting people even if I wasn't physically harming them."

"You're splitting hairs and you know it." Len glared at him, and Barry shrugged.

"The people Flash steals from are _not_ hurt by my actions," he insisted. "I'm very careful about my contracts. I don't take anything irreplaceable, or that the target can't afford to lose. Hell, half the time I'm being contracted to steal something that was obtained illegally in the first place. The statue I took from the Donovan safe was stolen from a museum. The data I got from the Rathaway job last month was schematics on proprietary tech _they_ took from Mercury Labs, and were planning to sabotage."

"And that makes it okay for you to steal from them? Because they're breaking the law, you're allowed to, as well?"

"Is it okay for you to break the law and run around beating people up, because they're bad guys?" Barry shot back. "Vigilantes are a nightmare for the police, they do far more harm than good. The only reason you're an exception is because you at least know what you're actually doing, and make sure there's enough evidence for your busts to stick."

Len grimaced, unable to argue that point. "I'm not doing it for personal gain. I don't get paid for being Captain Cold."

"So if some wealthy philanthropist decided Cold is necessary for the good of the city, and stepped up to offer to bankroll you, you'd turn them down?" Barry shook his head. "What you mean to say is that you're doing it to protect people, and I'm being selfish."

"Yes, exactly." Len gestured with one hand. "God, Barry, with your powers, you could be doing _so much_ for the city. You'd make Captain Cold look useless."

"The city never did a fucking thing for me." Barry crossed his arms. "All those people who turned their backs on me, looked the other way..."

"Do you not realize how hypocritical you're being?" Standing, Len paced back and forth at the foot of the bed, making agitated gestures as he spoke. "You resent all those people for not helping you, not saving you from your father. Yet you won't put yourself out to try to help someone else in trouble?"

"Exactly how much do I have to do, trying to save people, before it's 'enough'?" Barry stared him down. "I work hard every day as a CSI, solving crimes and putting criminals behind bars. That's already more than most people do. Is everyone who chooses a job other than being a cop therefor failing to step up and do their duty? Are they bad people for staying in their comfortable lives, instead of risking themselves to help others?"

Again Len couldn't seem to find a comeback. "Of course not," he muttered. "But those people aren't also going out and breaking the law themselves. It's not a zero sum game, Barry. Doing good as a CSI doesn't mean it balances your bad acts as a criminal."

"These rich assholes invented the idea of 'possession is nine tenths of the law'. I don't hurt people. And yes, I know that doesn't make it okay. But it means I don't lose any sleep over stealing from them." Barry paused, and looked down, picking at a pulled thread in the blanket someone had draped over him. "I really didn't steal anything before becoming the Flash, though. I was starving."

The shift in tone seemed to bring Len's agitation down as well, and his expression softened slightly. He stopped moving, bracing his hands on the rail at the foot of the bed as he regarded Barry. "Cisco explained how you met the two of them, and what they've done for you. Why didn't you come to me? You know I'd have helped you."

"Why didn't you tell Joe and Mick and I about your powers?" Barry countered. "And don't say it's because you wanted to give us plausible deniability. You had your powers for months before Captain Cold made his first appearance."

"I..." Len appeared to struggle with that for a moment, before his shoulders slumped. "I was afraid you'd all look at me differently. I nearly killed Lisa, and it took weeks for her to stop flinching every time I got too close. She tried hard to hide it, to pretend nothing had changed, but _everything_ had changed."

"All the known metahumans at the time were criminals, and people at the precinct were acting like powers made you an automatic villain." Barry vividly remembered his fear and paranoia at the time, that someone would find out about his powers and think the worst of him. "They're already suspicious of me because of my history. Can you imagine if it came out that I'm a meta, as well? Of course I knew you wouldn't turn on me, but I was scared. All I could think to do was hide."

"That explains the first attempt at stealing. Cisco and Caitlin helped you after that. You didn't need to do it again." Len narrowed his eyes. "Let alone go on to steal millions of dollars worth of items."

"Once I'd started again, I remembered why I'd done it in the first place." Even getting caught hadn’t been enough to dampen the thrill of it. The way his heart beat so fast, and nervous tension sang through his body, and it felt like he could take on anyone or anything.

"That was to get away from your father, get enough money to run away." Len's brow knitted in confusion.

Barry wasn't sure he could put this into terms Len would understand, as inherently good as the man was. But he had to try. "That was only one small part of it. The way I feel, when I'm running a heist... it's a thrill, and a massive confidence boost. I feel like I'm grounded and stable, and at the same time ready to fly. I'd forgotten how _alive_ it makes me. It was like I’d been sleepwalking, and suddenly woke up."

"You could take up some kind of extreme sport instead, if what you're after is the adrenaline boost," Len retorted. "I'd think running up and down buildings would be enough for that."

"It's not." Barry shrugged, helpless. "But there is another reason. Really, you have only yourself to blame."

"Me?"

He gave Len a crooked smile. "Playing with Captain Cold was _so_ much fun. I took more contracts than I needed to, just to be able to go up against you again."

That seemed to give Len pause. He shifted, uncomfortable, frowning at Barry. "That's the one thing I really don't understand. You knew who I was, obviously. But the teasing, the flirting..."

Barry laughed. "C'mon, Len. You must realize I had a massive crush on you as a kid. That’s why I stopped going on the bike rides with you - I was afraid you’d notice the reaction I had to being pressed that close to you."

That made Len smile, though he clearly fought it. "I was aware of the hero-worship, yes. You grew out of it."

"Not exactly." Barry's smile turned rueful. "Be very grateful you started dating Mick again about the time I came of age. I had _plans_ for my eighteenth birthday party, until you showed up with him as your date.”

“Oh?”

Heat swept over Barry’s face, all the way up to his ears. “Let's just say, it's definitely better for everyone that I was derailed. Looking back on it as an adult, it would have ended in absolute disaster, and maybe even ruined our relationship entirely. I feel bad for taking my frustration out on Mick, though."

"I always wondered why you hated him on sight. Mick believed you disliked him because you were jealous. Turns out he was right." Len sighed. "But after that..."

"After that I tried hard to move on, get over you," Barry agreed. College had been both a liberating and agonizing experience for him, at least in part because he’d been struggling so hard with his feelings for Len. He’d accepted that it was never going to happen, that the older man wasn’t interested in a kid like him. 

But knowing it in his head didn’t make it any easier to convince his heart. The emotional conflict was painful in a way that all his father’s torture had never prepared him to deal with. He’d been adrift and alone, because the person he usually turned to for help was exactly the person he needed to stop thinking about.

"I dated, casually and seriously. I had flings with girls and guys. I did everything I could think of to get you out of my system and find a better partner, but nothing stuck.” Barry sighed. “Then one day, I finally met someone. He was a lot like you. Had many of the same good qualities I loved about you, but without some of the not so great ones - he knew how to relax and have fun, for one thing. You're too serious and focused, a lot of the time."

Len was frowning again. "You never told me you'd fallen for someone. When was this? _Who_ was this?"

"It was doomed to failure from the start." Barry chuckled, still amused by the irony of it all. "Kind of a bird and fish thing, and never the twain shall meet. But I thought, _maybe_ there was a chance. We got off on the wrong foot, but maybe I could fix it. So I followed him home, to find out who he really was."

"You followed him..." Light dawned, and Len stared at him. "You're talking about Captain Cold."

"Imagine my dismay when the guy I was _finally_ getting over you for, turned out to be you as well." Barry spread his hands. He’d never forget his shock when he’d realized the identity of his nemesis-slash-playmate. It probably would have been Captain Cold’s best opportunity to catch him flat-footed, if the hero had realized the Flash was there.

"At that point I figured the universe was telling me to give up,” he concluded. “At least, as the Flash, you treated me like an equal. You saw me as somebody you could be interested in. Don't even try to tell me you didn't flirt back."

"I did." The admission seemed to be dragged out of Len by force. "I hated myself for it sometimes, being attracted to a criminal. Didn't stop me from feeling it. But knowing it's you... Barry, I'm the closest thing you have to a real fath..."

Between one blink and the next Barry was up off the bed, across the room, pinning Len to a wall with his hand clamped over the older man's mouth. Len had been about to call himself a father figure, Barry was sure of it. He glared from inches away, and his voice came out as a growl. "Do _not_ finish that sentence."

In no universe did he want the concept of Len and the concept of his father to be anywhere near each other. Especially not now, after what Henry had done to him, what the bastard was doing to them both.

Regret and apology filled Len's eyes, and he nodded. Barry released him and took a step back, and Len grimaced. "Poor choice of words. Big brother, then."

"I love you like family," Barry acknowledged. "But Len, I have _never_ seen you as a brother. Not even close. Waaaay too many steamy fantasies about you for that, over the years."

Was it his imagination, or was there a spark of heat in Len's expression as a response to that admission? Barry searched his eyes, looking for some further sign, but Len had shut down, closed himself off. 

"If it's too weird for you, now that you know I'm the Flash... if you can't see me as anything but a little brother, I understand," Barry said softly. "Tell me that, and I'll never flirt with you again."

Len's eyes dropped, as if he couldn't meet Barry's gaze. There was a distinct flush on his cheeks. Embarrassment at the idea of having ever flirted with the 'kid' under his protection?

Or something else? 

Len said nothing, though he kept opening his mouth like he was trying to. Barry's heartbeat kicked into overdrive, as he remembered the night on the roof with Mardon, when they'd kissed for the first time. Len _had_ responded to him then, he was sure of it. Had wanted it as much as Barry did. And after, he hadn't been able to bring himself to deny that. The silence had been as good as an admission.

"Len?" Barry prompted him, wanting to be sure. He couldn't make an assumption here, didn't dare risk destroying his bond with the man forever because Barry was seeing what he wanted to. "Tell me that you see me as a brother, and can't think of me that way. Tell me what we have as Cold and the Flash isn't enough to overcome that."

"I..." Len's voice failed him. Barry caught his chin and forced his gaze up again. The conflict was palpable, as if Len was torn in two by his own feelings. "Damn it, I'm going to be forced to arrest you when this is done. You said it yourself, fish and bird."

"That's not what I asked." Fuck, was this really happening? Barry was half convinced he was still asleep after all, or had fainted from hunger in the middle of the conversation and not realized it. 

Deliberately he stepped forward, invading Len’s personal space. Letting go of Len’s chin, Barry braced both hands on the wall on either side of the other man’s shoulders. It was an aggressive stance, very much the way Flash would taunt Cold - but much, much closer than Barry usually dared to get. 

Len swallowed hard, and the chill radiating from him intensified, distinctly at odds with the heat building in his eyes. Still he resisted. “This is a very bad idea, Barry.”

"Tell me you don't _want_ me.” This time the husky quality in Barry’s voice had nothing to do with damage to his throat, and everything to do with the arousal streaking through his system, making him hyper aware of the man so close against him. “If you don’t, I swear we are finally going to find out exactly how much heat is generated by applying speed to cold."

Something broke in Len's expression, his posture going from defensive to answering aggression almost too fast even for Barry to follow. He grabbed Barry's hips, as if to shove him away, but clung tight instead. 

"You talk too goddamn much, Ginger," Len growled, and yanked Barry in for a kiss.

Sensation overwhelmed Barry. Len's mouth was hard against his, almost angry, his tongue plunging into Barry's mouth as an attack. He licked and stroked Barry's tongue and mouth, nipping at his lower lip, all but devouring him. The chill of it was tantalizing, making shivers race down Barry's spine and paradoxically causing heat to surge in his groin.

This was nothing like the kiss on the roof, where Len had been first unresponsive and then reluctant. This was all in, holding nothing back, fully invested. 

Thrilled beyond belief, Barry kissed back just as passionately. He nipped back, then broke away to trail his mouth over Len's jaw and down his throat. He gripped Len's hips in turn, pressing their groins together, feeling Len's cock swell to strain against his fly and grind against Barry's. 

They were perfectly matched, exactly the same height, pressed together so tightly there couldn’t be a single particle of air between them. Len spun him around, pushing him into the wall and pinning him there, as if he thought Barry might try to escape. 

In answer, Barry lifted his foot and hooked one leg around Len's, opening up his body and inviting the older man closer still. The wintergreen scent of the older man enveloped him, and Barry breathed deep to invite it in.

Arching his back, Barry rubbed their cocks together, reveling in the friction. Despite the waves of cold pouring off the other man, Barry was fully hard already. Hell, he hadn't been this ready to go and in danger of embarrassing himself since he was a teenager.

He accessed his speed without allowing it to slow his perception of time, not wanting to lose the delicious reactions from Len. Instead Barry used his power to make himself vibrate against Len, like a living sex toy. It was a trick he'd used on himself a few times, but the first chance he'd had to try it with someone else.

The response was everything he could have hoped for, and more. Len gasped and shuddered against him, cock twitching hard, eyes closed as he dropped his head to Barry's shoulder and panted desperately for air. " _Fuck_. Do that again."

Laughing in delight, Barry obliged, and Len groaned. His fist came up to tangle in Barry's hair, yanking his head back for another aggressive kiss. The cold coming off him intensified in response, his powers kicking into overdrive just like Barry's were. 

Suddenly what had been a pleasant tingle turned into a sharp pain, followed by dangerous numbness. Barry's healing, badly stressed by the events of the night, couldn't hope to keep up. Barry broke the kiss and tried to gasp out a warning, but all that came out was a groan. 

Clearly unaware that anything was wrong, Len bit Barry's ear, then licked the spot as if to soothe it. The whole side of his face went numb in response.

"Len..." Barry felt sluggish and disconnected, unable to keep his thoughts together long enough to form a sentence. His chest hurt, and he couldn't seem to draw a full breath. When he looked down, he saw a sheet of ice creeping over him, preventing his chest from rising.

Blackness rose up to meet him, and for the second time that night Barry spun down into it. The last thing he saw was the panicked look in Len's eyes as the older man finally realized what was happening.

Then there was nothing.


	13. Chapter 13

Kissing Barry was a distinctly surreal experience. Len had thought of him as a boy for so long, but the young man pressed against him was proving Len wrong. Barry knew exactly what he was doing, tongue sliding along Len's, hands pulling him close to grind their hips together, and...

Fucking _vibrating_ against him. _Holy shit_ that felt incredible. 

The blatant use of speed also reminded Len that he wasn’t just kissing Barry - he was kissing the Flash. That turned it into the living embodiment of quite a few steamy fantasies he’d had about the other meta in the last year. He groaned and fisted his hand in Barry's hair, tugging the other man's head back for a more demanding kiss.

Barry shuddered against him and clung tighter. Len broke the kiss and trailed his mouth away, fully intending to taste every inch of Barry's body. It had been so long since he'd touched anyone. Len felt greedy, like a kid who's just been told he can have anything he wants from the candy store.

Except something was wrong. Barry had gone still, and his hard, fast breathing was turning shallow. Alarmed, Len pulled back - and remembered with stark terror exactly why he hadn't had human contact in so long. 

The younger man's lips were turning blue, his skin taking on the waxy white consistency that indicated frostbite. His eyes slid closed as the ice creeping over his chest shut down his body. Barry slumped against Len, who caught him and lowered him carefully to the ground, then hastily put as much distance between them as he could to avoid making it any worse.

Even after so many months, Len still had frequent nightmares about that first burst of his powers that had nearly killed Lisa. Now it was happening again, except his powers had grown so much stronger. He was afraid he might freeze Barry so solid the young man would shatter under pressure. For the second time in one night, Len was watching Barry die right in front of him. 

"Dr. Snow!" he shouted, hoping against hope the woman was somewhere in hearing range. STAR Labs was huge, and he had no idea where to even start looking for her. The Flash had always shrugged off Cold’s powers with a laugh and a burst of speed. Why wasn’t Barry doing it now?

Snow came running in. "What happened, is he..." Her gaze flicked from the empty bed, down to Barry lying half covered in ice on the ground, and her eyes went wide with shock. "What on _earth_? Did he manifest a new power?"

"No, that's my fault." There was no point in hiding who Len was, not now. "I let him get too close, and forgot myself. Normally Flash is all but immune to my ice, he vibrates and shakes it off."

She frowned thoughtfully at him, but her main attention was on Barry where it belonged. She reached down and checked for Barry's pulse. "Mr. Allen's abilities, healing and speed both, are already stressed from trying to deal with the organ replacement. He must not have been able to keep up with your powers as they were applied, but he should have recovered enough by now that..."

The ice around Barry's chest cracked, then shattered. His whole body blurred as the frozen chunks slid off him, and he gasped for air. The gasp turned into another coughing fit, though this time it didn't have the horrible wet choking sound as his lung refused to inflate.

A moment later he came back into focus, pushing himself up to sit with his back resting against the wall. "Okay, that was probably stupid," Barry muttered, rubbing at his face briskly to try to warm himself further. "I'm fine."

"Fine?" Len's voice broke on the word, and he stared at the younger man. " _Fine_? Barry, I nearly killed you." 

"Nearly being the operative word." In a fit of idiocy apparently induced by oxygen deprivation, Barry grinned up at him like they were sharing a joke. "And normally it won’t be a problem, I’m just tapped out right now."

Cisco came skidding into the room, and his brows knitted in confusion as he took in the tableau. "What happened?"

"I lost control of my powers," Len admitted sourly. 

Cisco blinked at him, then looked at the ice chunks still littering the floor, and came to the correct conclusion. "You're Captain Cold? Wait, so Barry's detective hero is also the Flash's nemesis? That's _so_ twisted. I love it."

The confirmation that Barry had never so much as dropped a hint about Cold's identity would have been marginally reassuring, if Len wasn't so busy hating himself for forgetting his own limitations. "Skin contact drastically increases the effect my cold has on things, and makes it almost impossible for me to control it. Barry, I'm sorry."

"Hey, stop that." Barry was on his feet and inches away - Len hadn't seen him move. He reached for Len's hand, and Len snatched it back.

"Are you suicidal?" Len snarled. "I'm too damn agitated, I could freeze you again even with the insulation of the gloves."

"So, ordinarily your powers don't affect things through the gloves, but you almost always freeze anything your skin touches?" Caitlin’s expression was quizzical. Len nodded, though he wasn't sure what was so difficult to understand. She tilted her head. "How do you eat?"

"Quickly," Len muttered. "And the cooler it is to start with, the less likely I’ll freeze it. Anything too warm will burn me."

"Dude, how do you _shower_?" Cisco seemed delighted by the chance to question Len about the intimate aspects of his powers.

Len scowled in response. "Also quickly." Ice did a lousy job of washing off soap. It was a good thing he wasn't affected by cold anymore, or cleaning up would have been torture.

Caitlin's puzzled look only increased. "You do realize the issue is entirely psychosomatic?"

"In what way is the fact that I freeze everything I touch only in my head?" Len demanded, frowning right back at her.

She gestured at his body. "If you actually had no ability to stop yourself from icing anything your skin contacts, your clothes would freeze. The gloves help you keep control because you believe they will."

Now Len was staring for a different reason, his mind spinning in circles. She was right. Why _didn't_ his clothes freeze? Why would the gloves not transmit the ice right through them? Hell, they didn't help when he got agitated, he knew that. But even when he lost control and frost spread out from his hand, the gloves themselves didn't freeze. The ice went right through them.

Was she right? Because of what happened to Lisa, Len _had_ probably internalized the idea that his powers would hurt anyone he touched. That would easily transfer to a subconscious certainty that he would freeze objects without meaning to, as well.

Christ, was he sabotaging himself by believing in his own lack of control? 

"The bracelet!" Barry exclaimed, snapping his fingers. "Guys, the power dampening bracelet. If we give him one, it should let him function a lot more normally. He can practice control when he wants to, not have to suffer from his powers all the time."

Cisco frowned. "But the power dampener isn't...." 

There was a sudden gust of wind, which should have been impossible, since they were deep inside the building. Len looked at Barry suspiciously, but the younger man didn't appear to have moved at all. Which meant nothing, with his powers.

He also looked far too innocent, the 'don't look at me, I haven't done anything wrong' expression he'd been trying to con Len with since he was fifteen. What had he done?

Cisco coughed, and continued. "Sorry. I meant, it isn't ready for mass production. We only have the prototype."

"But it might help," Caitlin put in. There was a smile playing around the edges of her lips, as if she was fighting to hide it and losing. "Especially if you're willing to let us run some tests like we do on Mr. Allen, so we can fine-tune it."

Caitlin and Cisco had explained a bit about their experiments on the Flash, when telling Len why they hadn't turned the thief in. He was highly appreciative of their efforts to find a way to safely contain metahumans, but they'd said it wasn't finished yet.

"All right, what aren't you telling me?" Len eyed them each in turn. "Don't think I don't realize Barry kicked Cisco to get him to change what he was saying. You told me the dampener wasn't working."

Barry looked sheepish, caught out. "It's not, in that it overloads and kind of blows up if the metahuman wearing it fights the effect too hard. So it's not useful yet to the cops and prisons. But I don't think you could overload it without meaning to, no matter how agitated you get. You’d have to really be _trying_."

If that was true... god, Len could barely imagine it. Less than a year of living with his powers, and he'd already forgotten what 'normal' felt like. To be able to take his time eating food, instead of bolting each bite in an effort to get it down before it froze solid. To wake up on sheets that hadn't frozen solid in the night, leaving him on an uncomfortable ridged slab of ice.

To be able to embrace Lisa without fear - and kiss Barry without killing him.

It might not work. They didn't know for sure. Len tried not to let hope carry him away, but it was so hard. He struggled to keep his voice casual as he answered. "It's certainly worth a try."

Barry vanished, another gust of wind stirring the air in his wake. He returned an instant later, holding out a silver bracelet about half an inch thick. It opened on a hinge, and he snapped it firmly around Len’s wrist.

"You activate and deactivate it with this button. This button opens the clasp," Barry explained. "If it does start to overload, it'll get really hot - you'll probably notice that temperature change faster than I did, actually. So you'll have time to pull it off."

"Go on, give it a try," Cisco urged, his eyes alight with eager curiosity. 

Len still got the sense there was something they weren't telling him, but he didn't think it was anything malicious. He pressed the button, and the bracelet lit up with glowing circuitry that shone a soft, pale blue. Not exactly the most subtle accessory in the world, but he could hide it under his sleeve. "I don't feel any different."

"I do, but that's because my speed affects me constantly in a very direct way." Barry shrugged. "It makes me feel sluggish as soon as it's on. Try to use your powers."

Cautiously Len peeled off one glove, and reached out to press his hand against the wall. Usually, frost would immediately spread from his fingers unless he worked hard to control it, but this time nothing happened.

Still not quite daring to believe, Len actively attempted to send his ice out. Still nothing. Not even when he pushed harder, trying to test it to the limits of what happened when he got upset and lost control. He kept a sharp eye on the temperature of the bracelet, but it remained constant.

Delighted, he turned back to the others. "It works!"

Caitlin had grabbed a data pad and was poking at it. "Your body temp is still - well, I'd say 'dangerously low' but not for you, apparently. That's probably an inherent change, not something being actively affected by your powers the way Mr. Allen's speed is, so it hasn't been altered by the dampener."

"That means hot things will still burn you," Cisco warned, moving to peer over Caitlin's shoulder at the readings. "But at least you won't auto-freeze anything warm."

" _Thank_ you." It was an effort to keep his voice from trembling. They couldn't possibly understand how much this meant to him. Then it occurred to him that this was their prototype, and his heart sank. How long would it take them to make one for him? "If you need this one back..."

"Nah, man." Cisco waved that off. "Keep it. I end up making a new one every other time, anyway."

Relieved, Len stroked his fingers over the surface of the bracelet tracing the faint lines of the circuits. He had a feeling this was going to become a new habitual gesture for him.

"If you don't mind, we should run some tests," Caitlin said, breaking into his grateful reverie. "I suppose the speed lab is as good a location as any."

"How about we give him a little while to adjust, first?" Barry suggested, his smile suggesting that at least _he_ understood the enormous impact this change had on Len, and how it had shaken him. "Maybe you guys should go figure out what tests to even set up?"

"Oh. Yes, of course." Caitlin had a pretty flush on her cheeks. Cisco just looked disappointed, but nodded and followed his colleague out of the room.

To Len's surprise, Barry vanished as well, but the younger man was back a moment later. He held a blue ceramic mug with the STAR Labs logo in white, faint wisps of steam rising from the liquid inside.

"Let's see if you can handle this." Barry smiled at him, and offered the mug. "Careful."

Len didn't need the warning, not after all the times he'd burned himself on warm objects for the first week of having his powers. He reached cautiously for the mug and took it by the handle. It was warm against his fingers, riding the line of too hot but just on the safe side of it. Curious, Len peered inside and saw the swirl of marshmallows in hot cocoa.

Astonished, he looked up at Barry, whose smile grew. Barry shrugged. "Lisa gave me her recipe a couple of years ago. I figure it's probably a good start for the first warm thing you've been able to eat or drink in a year. It’s barely hot, so hopefully it won’t hurt you.”

"There are two impossibilities in that statement," Len said, staring down into the chocolate. "One, that you heated the milk up that quickly. And two, that you somehow convinced Lis to give up her secret ingredient."

Barry laughed. "I shook it really fast to agitate the molecules into warming up. Might be a little frothy. I’m not telling her secret, though."

Slowly Len tipped the mug to his lips, taking a small sip first. The rich flavour burst across his tongue, a symphony of sugar and cinnamon. It _almost_ burned him, but not quite, which was exactly what hot chocolate was supposed to do anyway.

And it didn't freeze.

He took another sip, closing his eyes to savour the taste. This was definitely Lisa's recipe, and god but Len had missed the family treat. It was embarrassing how _much_ the tiny gesture meant to him, filling his chest with warmth that had nothing to do with the chocolate.

Or maybe not such a tiny gesture. It showed just how well Barry knew Len, and how much the younger man cared. That said a lot, when it came right down to it.

Opening his eyes, Len saw Barry grinning in delight, probably at the indecent expression of pleasure Len was undoubtedly sporting. Rolling his eyes, Len fought down a blush. "Not a word," he said, but it didn't come out in the scolding tone he'd meant it to. He was enjoying this too much.

Barry raised his hands as if to surrender. "I wasn't going to say anything," he protested, though the blatant laughter in his voice suggested otherwise. "I'm just enjoying the view. Though, as much as I like putting that look on your face, I'd rather find other ways to do it?"

The last sentence started out casual and confident, but it looked like uncertainty got the better of Barry, because it ended as a hesitant question. The reminder of what they'd been up to before his powers interrupted made a different sort of heat swirl inside Len, centered on his groin.

"We shouldn't," Len forced himself to say, caught between conflicting impulses of protection and desire. "There's no guarantee how much this bracelet will be able to handle, and your healing isn't working right."

"So we take it slow," Barry suggested. "It's probably what we ought to be doing anyway - though I'm _not_ complaining about being pinned to the wall! Unless you're saying you've changed your mind?"

Not responding to Barry's teasing tone, Len regarded him seriously, giving the question the thought it deserved. "I won't deny this is causing some drastic shifts in the way I think about you. It's going to require adjustment."

"Would this help?" Barry’s cowl was abruptly in place, the mask hiding most of his features. He didn't blur his face or voice, and perhaps that should have made it look like 'Barry in a costume', but it was very much the Flash now standing before him.

"Yes, actually." It wasn't that Barry was unattractive to him, just that Len was unused to thinking of the younger man as a potential object of desire. The Flash, on the other hand, had been the subject of quite a few heated dreams and naughty fantasies for Len. And he had to admit, that red suit did very nice things to Barry's ass. 

However, it also reminded Len of the other issue that lay between them, creating a possibly insurmountable obstacle. "There's still the bird and fish problem," he pointed out gruffly. "I won't ignore you being a thief because I care about you, Barry." No matter how much it would kill him to put the younger man into a cell.

Handcuffing him wouldn't be so bad in and of itself, under the right circumstances. But that was unlikely to happen, now.

"I know." Barry's voice softened, turned rueful. He moved in, closing his hands around Len's on the mug, close enough Len could feel the incredible warmth the Flash always gave off. "You'd never look the other way. Just like you'd never have ignored what was happening to me as a kid, no matter what my father tried to do to put you off."

"Then you know this isn't going to end well." The words felt torn out of Len, as if they were ripping his heart in two. 

"So let us have these moments," Barry urged. "Let us have this memory. It might be the only thing either of us has to hang on to, for a long time to come. Maybe the rest of our lives. What benefit do we get out of turning away now?"

That was a difficult argument to counter, the more so because Len had no real desire to try. He looked into Barry's eyes, behind the Flash's mask, and this time the juxtaposition didn't seem so jarring. "Carpe diem, huh? Live for the moment?"

"It's what I do best." This time Barry's smile was heated. "Especially these days, when a moment seems to last for like, an _hour_." To Len's surprise, instead of leaning in for a kiss, Barry lifted their joined hands and took a sip of the hot chocolate.

Understanding came a moment later, as Barry _did_ press their lips together. Len opened for him, tasting the chocolate on Barry's lips. He chased the sweetness with his tongue, delving deep. As good as Barry had tasted on his own, he tasted even better now.

Tugging the mug free of Len's hands, Barry set it aside somewhere. His hands returned to fist in Len's sweater, yanking it up. Reluctantly Len broke the kiss and let Barry pull the sweater over his head - then laughed at the look on the younger man's face when he discovered the t-shirt beneath.

"How many layers do you wear?" Barry muttered, grabbing for the t-shirt too. "Don't you have to worry about overheating?"

"Same as the blankets, it's insulation," Len reminded him, the words somewhat muffled by the shirt coming over his head. Barry dove for his fly next, and Len caught the younger man's hands, raising an eyebrow. "I thought we were taking it slow?"

"This _is_ slow, for me," Barry retorted with a cheeky grin, but he lifted his hands again to run them over Len's chest. "I promise, if I feel you getting too cold, I'll stop."

Len returned the favour, searching for the zipper or whatever mechanism opened the suit. His fingers slid over smooth material with no indication of an opening. "What do you do, vibrate yourself into this thing?"

Barry laughed, and made no move to show Len how to remove it. Instead he caught Len's nipple against the edge of his nail, then pinched it as the peak stiffened. Then he vibrated his hand again, and Len barely muffled a shout at the spike of pleasure that rippled through him.

"You oughta be labelled as a dangerous hazard, Ginger," he panted when he had his voice under control again. Reflexively he glanced at his hand, but there were still no frost crystals forming, even on the ungloved hand.

"See, I knew that was a pet name," Barry laughed. "For this, though, you can catch me anytime you want." He glanced at the door, frowned, and then...

...everything was moving and Len's stomach lurched as the world spun around him and...

...they were in another room entirely. Len blinked, then blinked again as his mind readjusted. It looked like some kind of storage room, but instead of reams of paper and cleaning supplies, the shelves held odd gadgets and mysterious electronics. "Should you be using your speed like that? How far did we go?"

"I'm recovering, just not enough to handle a full blast of your ice," Barry assured him. "We're a floor up and a hallway across. The med room door doesn't lock, and there's a camera with a direct feed to a monitor in the Cortex that I can't shut off. Nobody will look for us in here."

"Is this where they caught you breaking in?" It looked like the kind of place that might be tempting to a thief. Len wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that association.

Then he turned from his perusal of the room to find that Barry had stripped himself out of the Flash suit at some point. Being confronted with the younger man's toned, muscled body was a fantastic distraction from thoughts about Barry's criminal habits. 

Or from any worries about whether he was taking advantage of the younger man, for that matter. " _Damn_ , Barry. When the hell did you get shredded?"

"When I got struck by lightning, apparently." Barry attempted a sexy pose, looking awkward and adorable and attractive all at the same time. His tight underwear left very little to the imagination, though the lightning bolt pattern definitely pushed things in the 'cute' direction. 

"You got ripped and I got ripped off, how is that fair?" Despite his complaint, Len was more than happy to reach out and run his hands over the strong chest and washboard abs. As a definitive reminder that Barry was _not_ a kid anymore, that body worked pretty damn well.

Barry shivered beneath his touch, and for a moment Len worried his power was coming back, but the expression on Barry's face was pure pleasure. He tipped his head back, leaning against one of the shelves, opening up the line of his body for Len's exploration. 

"Please," Barry murmured, his voice breaking. "God, Len, I've wanted this, wanted _you_ , for so long. You don't even know."

Len went in for another kiss, licking and nibbling as his hands drifted down. 

Barry was far from hulking, still with the same slender build he'd always had - Len had even called it a 'runner's build' a few times. The change was in definition, not size, and damn but it was a hell of an improvement. Len had always had a thing for sleek muscles, he would freely admit it. "Mmm, very nice. I approve. Guess all that 'jogging' is good for something."

Barry gave a breathy laugh. "I love it when you purr like that." He dropped his hand to cup Len's cock through his pants, squeezing and kneading at the rapidly stiffening shaft. "Can't tell you how many times I got hard over the years, watching you savour a drink or dessert."

"Oh, is that why you brought me the hot chocolate?" Len groaned, hips tilting to give Barry better access, hands tightening on the younger man's hips to pull him close.

"Yeah, pretty much." Barry sounded utterly unashamed by the confession of his ulterior motive. "God, the fantasies I've had about you talking dirty to me..."

"Like what?" Len nipped at Barry's collarbone, and the other man exhaled sharply. "Me telling you how badly I want to be inside you? Talking about how much I want to get those boxers off, push you against the wall, and take you hard and fast?"

"Yes!" The word was hardly more than a gasp, and this time Barry vibrated in reaction, not as a deliberate tease. "Exactly like that. Also, you're overdressed."

Len half expected it, so he wasn't surprised by the split-second whirlwind that surround him - or the draft that hit his suddenly bare ass a moment later. Barry was back in his arms, except now they were situated against the wall, with Barry trapped beneath Len exactly as he'd described. Their cocks rubbed together with nothing between them.

The heat pouring off Barry was _almost_ too much to bear, but Len basked in it. He wanted this to never end, but his dick was making it urgently clear that he wanted to be inside Barry more. So much for taking it slow. 

There was one problem, however. "I don't have any protection," he muttered, angry at himself for the lack. He used to carry a condom always in his wallet, just in case. Since getting his powers and becoming unable to even hug another person, he'd stopped bothering. "Do you..."

"No, but Caitlin says I probably can't even get sick anymore, with my healing ability." Barry gave him an enticing look, reaching down to grab both their cocks and stroke slowly. "We don't really need one."

" 'Probably' is not the same thing as safe." Len gave him a stern look. "I'm not going to risk..."

With a huff, Barry rolled his eyes, and disappeared. When he came back he was holding a familiar box, still suspiciously sealed. Len sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. "You just ran to a store while naked, didn’t you. Do I even need to ask if you stole that?"

Barry laughed. "I left money on the counter. Even ran it through the scanner so they'd know what the money was for. I told you, I did learn my lesson. I don't hurt the innocent." He raised an eyebrow, clearly copying one of Len's signature looks, and shook the box. "You going to pick a fight about it, or make use of these?"

Option A was the one Len should have taken, and he knew it. They both knew it. Barry's smug grin said he had no worries that would be the case - and Len couldn't help but prove him right. With a growl, Len gave in. "I'll read you the riot act later. Give me..."

This time it wasn't Barry's speed that cut Len off, just the sight of the younger man sinking to his knees, biting his lower lip as he looked at Len's cock with obvious desire. Groaning, Len braced one hand against the wall above Barry's head, the other coming down to tangle in the other man's tousled hair as Barry leaned in to lick at the head of Len's dick. 

Curling his fingers around the base, Barry opened his mouth and swallowed Len down, taking nearly the whole length of him. The young man's eager tongue lapped at the head, swirling around the slit and dancing around the glans. It took every bit of Len's willpower not to thrust into the wet heat of that glorious mouth. Barry did it for him, bobbing his head up and down, taking him deep, letting him feel the faintest scrape of teeth along the shaft.

Even knowing it was probably coming, the moment when Barry vibrated his tongue nearly undid Len entirely. The sensation was incredible, pleasure streaking across his nerves and gathering in a hot, heavy pool in his groin. He shouted, fist tightening in the younger man's hair, knees threatening to give way. His cock jumped, and Barry responded with another buzz of his tongue against the head.

" _Fuck_." There was little more Len could say to that. Hell, it was a miracle he managed to be that coherent. it was a struggle not to blow his load then and there, but Len was far from ready to end the night's fun. The problem was getting the words out to tell Barry so. "Nnngh... shit, I... Barry!"

To his dismay and relief, Barry slid back off him, sucking the whole way so Len's dick escaped his mouth with a soft 'pop'. He grinned up at Len, entirely too smug. "You have no idea how many times I've dreamed about you saying my name exactly that way. You taste so good, I could go all night."

A blur of his hands and Len was sheathed in a condom. Barry rose to face him so he was pinned between Len and the wall again. He wrapped his arms around Len's neck, kissing him deeply to let Len taste the bitter hints of his own precome on the younger man's tongue.

Hands dropping to Barry's hips, he urged the other man to lift one leg, wrapping around Len's thigh to open him up. It didn't even surprise him when Barry handed him a packet of lube, also fresh from a new box. At this point Len was far beyond objecting, so he slathered his fingers and skimmed them down over Barry's cock, playing a bit in retaliation.

The response was extreme, Barry shuddering beneath the touch as if Len had grabbed him and pumped hard. Panting, Barry tipped his head back against the wall, giving Len a crooked smile in answer to his surprise. "Pretty much everything happens faster for me, now. That's why I wanted to push you. On the bright side, zero refractory period."

"So when you said you could go all night, you meant it literally?" Len laughed softly. "Might have wanted to reconsider your thing for older men."

"Never." Barry said the word with such simple, heartfelt conviction that it tugged at something in Len's chest. "You're stuck with me now. No chance I'm ever getting over you, after this."

This was going to ruin Len for anyone else as well, he was almost certain. Barry was unlike any other partner he'd ever had, male or female - eager and willing, playful and inventive. And that was without even considering the vibrating trick.

Forcefully, Len pushed away the thought that this was probably going to be his only chance to enjoy it, and got down to the business of actually enjoying it. He slid his hand lower, slick fingers seeking and finding Barry's tight hole. He pushed one in, careful and gentle, and Barry groaned.

Turning his head, Barry caught Len's earlobe between his teeth and nipped, hard. "Super healing, remember?" Barry purred into his ear. "You literally can't hurt me. To me it feels like I've got all the time in the world to adjust. Go hard and fast, _please_."

It was the plea that undid him, convincing him Barry genuinely meant it and wasn't just trying to rush him from impatience. Len thrust in fully with his finger, then added a second right away. True to his word, Barry opened easily for him, tight enough to promise heavenly pleasure but accepting even the third finger with every evidence of enjoyment.

Giving in to what they both _really_ wanted, Len shifted his hands beneath Barry's ass and lifted him. Barry reached between them and grabbed Len's cock, lining him up so the blunt head pressed ever so slightly into the tight ring of muscle. Needing no further encouragement, Len slammed himself home in one fast, brutal motion.

Barry cried out and arched against him, his fingers digging into Len's shoulder for support. The sound couldn't be mistaken for anything but pure pleasure. Pulling back, Len thrust again, and again, not trying to be careful. Barry rocked in time with the motion, adding an extra edge of force to each thrust, clearly reveling in the fury of it as he'd promised. 

"Faster," Barry panted. "God, Len, _more_. You're killing me, I can't..." He broke off with a gasp, shuddering as he came hard. Sticky ropes shot between them, slicking the slide of body against body as Len continued to thrust. Despite the release, Barry's cock stayed hard as iron, rubbing between them as he moaned and writhed.

"Christ, Barry." Len had to grit his teeth to ride out the temptation to follow the younger man into orgasm. _He_ certainly wouldn't be able to get it up again in an instant. Barry had gone boneless against the wall, both legs now wrapped around Len's waist to help hold himself up as Len pounded into him.

"Keep going," Barry urged him, breathless and needy. "C'mon, Len. Give it to me!"

More than willing, Len tightened his grip and hefted Barry higher, changing the angle. Barry shouted and clung harder, back arching as Len hit the right spot. His whole damn body vibrated, the sharp buzz of his tight passage squeezing around Len's cock. 

It was too much, far beyond anything Len could hope to hold out against. His dick throbbed as he plunged into Barry one last time and stilled there, coming so hard and long it felt like he might actually pass out from the force of it. Len's knees gave out and they both slid to the ground, Barry in his lap and propped against the wall.

Overstimulated from the release, Len gasped out something that might have been a plea for mercy, if he'd had any hope of achieving coherency. Barry seemed to understand, vibration ebbing until all that was left was the normal slide and press of body against body in the aftermath of fucking mind-blowing sex.

Still reeling, Len rested his forehead against Barry's and closed his eyes, panting. Barry shifted so he was kneeling with his legs spread to either side of Len's, rather than wrapped around his back. The move pulled Len's softening cock free of him, and they both sighed in regret.

Feeling the hard shaft of Barry's cock still trapped against his stomach, Len pulled back enough to look at the younger man. Barry appeared to be anything but unsatisfied, radiating smug satisfaction. He laughed when he saw Len looking sideways at him.

"What? I did warn you." Barry stretched his arms up over his head, highlighting the toned muscles of his chest and abs. "Don't worry, you didn't leave me wanting. God, that was amazing."

Any sign of damage that might have been left by the Reverse Flash had vanished. Barry was the picture of good health, and though his skin was dotted by goosebumps, there was no sign of frostbite. He was gorgeous, breathtakingly so, and Len was seeing him in a whole new light.

" _You_ are amazing," he agreed, running his hand up and down Barry's back. The younger man arched into the touch like an oversized cat, and Len smiled.

Despite his best efforts, however, reality was creeping back in. As incredible as these few stolen moments had been, there was still a dangerous killer on the loose who was determined to destroy them both. Sighing, Len petted Barry one last time, then pushed him back off Len's lap. "Much as I hate to say it, we need to get back to work."

Barry's eyes darkened, and his aura of lazy satisfaction vanished in a blink. His shoulders hunched, corners of his mouth turning down at the reminder of his father. Len hated seeing the reaction, but they couldn't ignore the subject forever.

"I know," Barry acknowledged, his voice rough. "We should get Caitlin and Cisco in on this, they might see solutions we don't. The more minds, the better. I'm gonna grab some normal clothes while you get dressed, be right back."

Of course, when the Flash said 'be right back', it meant he was gone and back again before Len had even finished standing, let alone dressing. He rolled his eyes at Barry, now dressed in sweatpants and a hoodie with the STAR Labs logo emblazoned on the chest. 

"Gimme a minute - don't you _dare_ do the whirlwind dressing thing." As weird as it felt to have the Flash undress him, he was fairly certain getting dressed that way would be even more awkward.

Barry chuckled and leaned back against a shelf, crossing his arms over his chest. He seemed to be trying hard to give the appearance of casual confidence, but Len knew him well enough to see the edges of anxiety lurking in his gaze, the first hints of panic keeping his muscles taut with a fight-or-flight reflex.

Quickly Len pulled on his clothes, then turned and caught Barry around the waist. The younger man made a startled sound as Len pulled him close and kissed him, fast but sincere.

"What was that for?" Barry asked when they separated again, his hands braced against Len's chest. "Not that I'm complaining."

"Call it a reassurance that we'll stop the bastard, together." God knew they were going to need all the morale boosts they could get, fighting an enemy this powerful.

"And afterwards?" Barry's eyes dropped to Len's chest, unable to meet his gaze.

"Let's get through this first, before we start worrying about tomorrow's problems." Len refused to think that far ahead. They both knew what the answer to Barry's question was. 

Afterwards, Len would be faced with a choice between arresting one of the most important people in his life - who'd just become all the more important to him - or abandoning every principle of law and order that he held dear, betraying the core of himself by looking the other way and allowing a criminal to go free.

At that moment, Len honestly wasn't sure which option would hurt him more. It was entirely possible he wouldn't be able to live with himself regardless of which path he chose.


	14. Chapter 14

"Okay, so lemme see if I've got this straight." Cisco leaned dangerously far back in the computer chair, one foot pushing against the edge of the desk to keep him there, as he frowned at Barry and Len. "Barry's _dad_ is the mysterious killer, pretending to be a copycat of _himself_ , in order to frame Barry and get acquitted. He also _happens_ to be another, faster speedster, who has been waltzing out of jail on a regular basis in order to follow you two around and learn all your secrets."

He paused, considering his words, fingers fidgeting with a figurine of some sort that he'd picked up while he spoke. "Am I missing anything?"

"That's about the gist of it," Len agreed. It was a gross oversimplification, but for the purposes of planning a solution to the mess they were in, it would work. Now, if only restating the problem had caused some brilliant idea to pop into Len’s mind, because at the moment, he was batting zero.

"I thought serial killers tended to stick closely to their pattern," Caitlin said, arms crossed over her waist as if she was subconsciously trying to protect herself. "Vibrating the hearts out instead of cutting them is a logical escalation. But the new killer is murdering men as well, isn't he?"

"It could be a different form of escalation, or a change." Barry was perched on the edge of one of the desks, one of his disgusting-looking shakes clutched in his hand. "Serial killers _can_ shift their targets if they find a pattern that suits them better, or just ramp up to include a broader range. But in this case, I think Weather Wizard was killed because he tried to hurt Len and I."

"Thus interfering with Al... with Reverse Flash's 'rightful' prey, and being killed as a punishment, not a part of the ritual." Len switched the name he used at the last moment, remembering Barry's woeful comment that when Len called the killer 'Allen', it felt like he was talking about Barry. "That's likely why the heart was mangled and left behind. A statement that it wasn't worthy of being a trophy."

"What about Donovan?" Barry turned to Len, head tilted. "The husband, I mean. I assumed Reverse Flash probably killed him when he kidnapped the wife."

"Turned up alive and frantic on his honeymoon island, calling the police here to see if his wife had returned home after vanishing from their hotel room in the middle of the night." Len felt bad for the man, but his focus was on justice for the victims - and preventing there from being any more. "We _know_ the 'new' killer is Henry Allen, that's not up for debate. We also know he's a speedster, however that may have come about."

"So the question is, what do we do about it?" Cisco asked, tapping his foot against the desk edge.

Barry blinked, and looked surprised. "We?"

Cisco gave him a ‘duh’ look. "Dude. The guy's a _serial killer_. What kind of people would we be if we refused to help you?"

"He's right," Caitlin agreed softly. "I don't know how much use we'll be, but at the very least, you're both welcome to stay here until it's safe for you to return home. And our medical facilities are at your disposal, if needed."

"Ooh, also..." Cisco rubbed his hands together and sat up, looking at Len as a child might regard a large, shiny package beneath the Christmas tree. "I've got some ideas about extreme thermal gear - both a thin suit you could wear beneath your ordinary clothes to protect you from heat, and a better version of your parka and goggles."

"I like my parka just fine," Len objected, startled and a bit put out by the implied criticism. 

Cisco waved that off. "Yeah, I mean, it's okay. But I should be able to make something that can help concentrate and channel your powers, as well as be better insulation. Something that _really_ says 'superhero', not 'closet cosplay'."

The description made Barry cough to stifle a laugh, his eyes sparkling. Len had no idea what a 'closet cosplay' was, but clearly it wasn't a flattering description. Still... "If it helps me get stronger, I don't care what it looks like. And I'm sure as hell not going to turn down something that will protect me day-to-day."

"He built my suit to be heat resistant and as frictionless as possible," Barry put in. "My clothes kept catching on fire when I ran."

"Yeah, though I meant it for use _here_ in our testing," Cisco retorted, giving Barry a sour look. "Not for you to steal it and go running off to rob the world in it."

"Then you shouldn't have left it displayed so temptingly in the open," Barry replied, unrepentant. 

"You mentioned Reverse Flash had a suit like yours, but yellow." Len twisted the ring around his pinkie finger, thinking. "Where do you suppose he got it?"

"I dunno. Mercury Labs, maybe?" Barry shrugged. "He wouldn't even have needed to force someone to make it, he could have just paid for it. Though given the way he likes tormenting and dominating people, my money's on force."

"He must be eating constantly when he's out of his cell, or somebody would have noticed how much food he needs." Caitlin gave Barry a severe look, and he sighed and downed the shake he was holding. She promptly handed him another, at least his fourth since the meeting began. 

The STAR Labs duo had explained to Len about Barry's caloric needs, but it wasn't until now that Len truly understood what the abstract numbers _meant_. Even if those were regular protein shakes, he'd seen Barry chug enough to feed three people for the day, and yet Caitlin continued to press more on him. It gave a whole new meaning to 'bottomless pit'.

"Reverse Flash was pretty much skin and bones," Barry said, his tone thoughtful. "He's always been kinda thin, you know? But not like this. Whatever he's eating, it's not nearly enough." He paused, and shuddered. "If he's this fast and powerful half-starved, I'm terrified of what he'd be like at full strength."

That 'terrified' wasn't an exaggeration. Barry was doing a decent job of hiding his fear from Caitlin and Cisco, but Len knew him too well. This wasn't the first time Barry had shivered like he was cold, though the temperature in the room Cisco referred to as the 'cortex' was high enough to make Len sweat. The younger man was holding panic at bay with sheer willpower, but Len suspected Barry's nightmares were going to be horrific again, for a long while to come.

"So, again, what are we going to do about this?" Cisco said. "I mean, do we have _any_ kind of plan?"

"Right now, all we've got is that my cold slows Barry, so it will presumably do the same to Reverse Flash." Len sounded sour even to himself, but it really wasn't much of a plan. Hell, it wasn't even much of an idea. "How I'm supposed to _apply_ that cold to him is another question."

"If I can lead Reverse Flash into some kind of ambush or trap..." Barry shrugged, clearly as frustrated by their lack of ideas as Len was. "I'll have to hold him in one place long enough for Len to hit him, though. And then..."

He glanced at Len, then down, and Len knew he was thinking about the need to kill his father. Barry gulped down the new shake, probably to avoid having to actually say the words. 

"We should run some tests," Caitlin suggested. "As soon as Barry is back to full strength, we can experiment with how best to use the cold to... what?" She broke off, because Barry was grinning hugely at her, an expression that seemed out of place in the current discussion.

"You called me Barry," he replied, and she flushed. "Might as well stick with it, Caitlin. 'Barry' and 'Len' are faster and easier to say than 'Mr. Allen' and 'Mr. Snart'. I'm sure that's your only reason."

"Obviously." Her spine went ramrod straight, as if she thought a rigid posture would hide her embarrassment at being called on the slip. "Regardless, we should test things like optimal distance and how long Leonard needs to hold his powers on a speedster to slow him."

Len inclined his head to acknowledge the suggestion, but he was frowning. "I'm not sure we have the time for much experimentation. The murders have been increasing in frequency at an alarming rate. Especially since any tests we run will, by definition, leave Barry slower until he recovers again."

"The real question is, how do I even _start_ leading him into an ambush?" Barry ran his hands through his hair, dishevelling the dark strands. His usual careful style was long gone, a casualty of the chaotic events of the night. "Unless he calls me out again, I have no idea how to find him."

"Other than when he's in jail," Caitlin pointed out.

They all paused, thoughtful. After a moment, Barry shook his head. "Too many potential hostages. The moment he sees me there, he'll grab the nearest guard and start leaving bodies behind, just to torment me with my inability to stop him."

"I could probably get close enough to start freezing him," Len said. "But again, unless I can get him cold enough, fast enough, he'll go for the hostages."

"Not to mention it would pretty thoroughly out you as Captain Cold," Barry said.

Len gave him a grim smile. "If it meant stopping the Reverse Flash, I'd take out an ad in the damn paper announcing my identity." Barry's eyes dropped, overcome - and he reached hesitantly for Len's hand, wrapping his fingers around Len's and squeezing.

Without hesitation, Len squeezed back. He wasn't ashamed, and if Barry needed the comfort, Len was more than willing to offer it. If the other two noticed the physical interaction, they didn't say anything - though from her tiny smile, Len was pretty sure Caitlin at least was aware of what was going on. 

"Okay, so you can't confront him in jail," Cisco said. "What if I reprogram the satellite to scan for speedster activity? Then we'd know when he's out and running around, and maybe give you a chance to head him off at the pass."

"You have a _satellite_?" Len stared at him.

"Well, yeah." Cisco shrugged, and made a gesture that encompassed the entire lab around them. "State of the art research facility, remember? Of course STAR Labs has a dedicated satellite. Not like it's being used for anything else right now."

That reminded Len of another question he'd had. "Who's funding this place, anyway? I thought Wells died in the explosion?"

"He did," Caitlin confirmed. Len felt bad when her tiny smile fled instantly, replaced by grief and regret. "He didn't have any family, so his will left everything to a trust for STAR Labs. The board of directors has been fighting to get that released to them directly on the argument that STAR Labs is no longer running, but in the meantime, the executor approved the use of enough funds to keep the lights on and pay our salaries."

" _Not_ enough for all the toys we've been building for our experiments, but we've got a couple of anonymous private donors," Cisco added. "We've put the word out in a few circles about what we're trying to do here, and I guess we're not the only ones who think it's a good idea to find a way to counter metahumans."

Barry's hand tightened, and he shifted his gaze away from Cisco as if he couldn't look the other man in the face. Eyes narrowed, Len regarded him thoughtfully. Even accounting for the fact that he'd managed to hide his metahuman powers and identity as the Flash, Barry was a _terrible_ liar.

"Anonymous donors, huh? What _are_ you doing with all the money from your heists, _Flash_?" Because even Barry couldn't be eating _that_ much food, and if he was living the high life, Len had missed it.

"You think I'm dumb enough to spend it?" Barry retorted. "It's in offshore accounts my friend set up for me. Don't bother trying to follow the money trail, nobody outhacks Ninja Hacker Goddess." The protest might have been more convincing if a flush hadn't swept over the younger man's face, burning all the way up to his ears. 

"Dude, you know NHG?" Cisco looked awed. "Seriously? Could I get an autograph?" 

Caitlin was staring wide-eyed as well, but Len was pretty sure it had nothing to do with an apparently famous hacker. She spoke slowly, as if feeling her way through the logic. "The donations started coming in shortly after the Flash pulled his first big heist. It's not after every theft, and there are several different apparent sources, but..."

"I told you, it's not me," Barry protested, not at all convincing. 

It didn't matter what Barry was doing with the money. The Robin Hood argument was _not_ a valid defense in court. Whether he was giving his illegally obtained funds to STAR Labs or starving orphans, it _didn't matter_.

Not to the law, anyway. Apparently, however, it did matter a great deal to Len. He'd misjudged Barry after all, thinking his illegal actions were entirely for selfish gain. It didn't make Len any less angry that Barry was a thief, but at the same time, he felt a bizarre sort of frustrated pride in the younger man. 

To distract himself from the uncomfortable feelings, Len wrenched the conversation back on track. "You can use the satellite to track a speedster?"

"We've done it before, with Barry." Cisco pushed away from the edge of his desk and wheeled his chair halfway across the room, stopping at a different computer and typing rapidly. A big screen hanging over the room flashed to life, showing a line map of the city. "Barr, can you..."

The warm hand against Len's vanished, and an instant later an orange streak appeared on the monitor. It zipped through the streets and buildings, too fast to follow except that the computer was showing the trail behind him. 

Len watched in fascination, for the first time seeing just how fast the Flash really was. It was one thing to watch him zoom around in a small space, never where you thought he would be. Another thing entirely to watch him cross and crisscross the city so fast he seemed to be everywhere at once.

A blast of wind scattered papers from the desks, and Barry's hand was back in Len's. It was even warmer now, almost hot enough to burn, but Len didn't protest. Barry looked up at the monitor in time to see the last of his own trail disappear into the representation of STAR Labs on the map.

"Impressive," Len told him. Once again, he thought longingly of how quickly Barry would be able to respond to an emergency call. The brief run had done Barry's mood a world of good - he was grinning, full of energy.

"Step one," Cisco listed, ticking points off on his fingers. "Set an alert for when Reverse Flash goes for a run, and track him. Step two, lead him into a trap and freeze him. Step four, profit?"

"What's step three?" Caitlin asked, tilting her head.

"Yeah, that's the question, isn't it." Barry’s happy energy from the run disappeared, and he sighed. 

Stroking the bracelet on his left wrist, Len tried to wrap his mind around something, _anything_ , that could eke out a win from this clusterfuck. Preferably a win that didn't involve Barry becoming a killer. Len couldn't argue that there was no safe way to hold Reverse Flash, but...

Len froze, fingers on his bracelet. The _power-dampening_ bracelet. "This," he said, lifting his left arm and pointing at it. " _This_ is how we beat him, once we get him slowed down. With this on him, he _can_ be safely held."

"It doesn't work," Barry protested. "I mean, it works, but it blows up if you fight it too hard, which he will."

"Then he kills himself, and it's not our problem," Len retorted. "We'll warn him. If he fights it anyway, that's not on our heads. I assume you can make a version that will lock and not allow him to get it off?"

"Yeah, absolutely." Cisco pushed over to yet another computer, his eyes alight with excitement. "I've got the design for that already, it's _meant_ to be used against criminals."

"Barry insisted we make his removable so we couldn't use a successful test to capture him and turn him in when we didn't need him anymore." Caitlin's tone was very dry, but there was a small, reluctant smile on her lips as she looked at Barry. "I suppose I can't blame him."

"If all we have to do is get the bracelet on Reverse Flash..." Barry's brow furrowed, like he was thinking hard, and his stare was a million miles away. "Maybe we don't even need an ambush. I could vibrate right into the prison and slap it on him. Then we don't have to worry about hostages, he won't have the power to take any."

"We'll only get one shot at it," Len pointed out, equally thoughtful. "As soon as he knows we have some way of holding him, he'll vacate the prison and not return. It will mean giving up his shot at exoneration, but that doesn't _really_ cost him anything. If you do it, we risk him seeing you coming, and fleeing. As you said, he's faster than you."

"It's still worth a try," Barry protested. "If it doesn't work, then we go back to Plan B and try to lead him into your ambush."

"I didn't say it wasn't worth trying." Len gave him a grim smile. "Just that it's possible he'll see you coming. I, on the other hand, have already talked to him recently once, and have good reason to do so again. The last thing he'll suspect is that I'm going to slap him with a restraint that can actually hold him."

"You still don't understand how fast he is." Barry's eyes were shadowed. "I can dodge _bullets_ , Len, and I don't have to know they're about to be fired. My perception just... automatically slows the moment I register anything odd around me. His will do the same, and he'll evade you."

"Thus outing himself as a speedster on camera, in front of reliable witnesses." Len allowed his smile to slide into a smirk. "Worst case scenario, he evades the bracelet and I prove he's a speedster, and thus a viable suspect for these killings. Then we go back to Plan B, as you said. Best case, we stop him _cold_."

"Oh, bad pun," Cisco groaned, and Len chuckled. "C'mon, it's bad enough Barry's always making them, don't you start."

Barry shook his head. "Is it my fault if my powers lend themselves to running jokes?" Cisco threw a wadded up ball of paper at him for the pun-within-a-pun, and Barry caught the missile easily.

"It won't be enough, though." Caitlin was ignoring the byplay around her with the dignity of a teacher in a rowdy kindergarten class. "Proving Henry Allen is a speedster makes him a viable suspect, but it doesn't prove the Flash isn't the killer. It will make people think Henry is the Flash, instead."

"Plus, they've got Barry's DNA on a victim, not Henry's." Cisco tossed another ball of paper up into the air and caught it, repeatedly. "So how do we clear Barry's name as a suspect? It's not like he can prove he's not a speedster."

"Oh!" Barry smacked himself in the forehead, then grabbed his phone and started swiping at it. "Reverse Flash sent me an email with a link to a livestream of him setting up to kill Jaden Donovan. It wasn't a recording, but..."

"But nothing on the internet is ever truly lost," Cisco agreed. Barry tossed him the phone, and Cisco plugged it into his computer. "If I can find a cached... got it! Uh... Barry, there's nothing here but a few seconds of blur."

"You'll have to slow it down a lot." Barry wrapped his arms around himself, a defensive posture that made Len's heart ache for the younger man. "It won't be proof that it's him, he vibrated his face and voice and I don't think you could slow it enough to clear the image. But at least it sets up some doubt that it was me - and shows that there's a second speedster who isn't the Flash."

"I can testify that Barry was extremely injured when he came here," Caitlin pointed out. "We've got scans and records of missing organs. No jury will believe he did that to himself."

"But that will out him as the Flash," Cisco protested.

"No, it will out him as a metahuman with self-healing powers," Caitlin countered. "Not quite the same thing." 

Len ran through the various scenarios in his mind, as a plan started to come together. " _I_ can testify that Barry ran to me, badly hurt, after his father tried to frame him for the murder. I can also testify that the Flash came to me, repeatedly, to plead his innocence and beg me to help him catch the killer. When he finally convinced me it wasn't him, I agreed to work with him. I go in to confront Henry, and when he tries to run, Flash gets the power dampener on him."

"That... could work." Barry said the words like they surprised him, and for the first time, real hope brightened his expression. "That _could_ work. Instead of the Flash and Captain Cold saving the day, it'll be the Flash and Leonard Snart."

"There's no way to stop Henry from telling people that you're the Flash, though." Cisco crossed his arms, unhappy with the idea. 

"Doesn't matter." Barry shook his head, and glanced at Len. "That will come out when the Flash is arrested as a thief, anyway."

Len avoided meeting the younger man's eyes, keeping his gaze down. He still hadn't solved the question of what the hell he was going to do about Barry, when this was all over. The new suspicion that Barry might not be entirely selfish in his motivations for stealing only muddied the waters further, however much Len knew it shouldn't matter.

Instead, he focused on the matter more immediately at hand. "We're agreed, then? I go in, try to cuff Reverse Flash, and when that fails, Barry comes through the wall and catches him by surprise. Having proved Henry is a speedster, it won't be difficult to convince the warden to leave the power dampener on him. Cisco, can you make two of them, or will Barry need to grab the one I bring?"

"I can make two almost as easily as one." Cisco looked excited. "It's like, three in the morning, though. Are we doing this tonight?"

"I wish we could," Len said. "The longer we wait, the more likely Henry will suspect Barry and I are working together, instead of against each other. But even I won't be able to get in to see him at this time of night, not without a warrant or a damn good explanation."

"Tomorrow, then," Barry agreed, subdued now that the plan was actually in place. Len assumed it was from the prospect of having to fight his father again.

Reaching out, Len caught his hand again, tugging Barry close to his side. "You won't be alone, this time," he reminded the younger man. "We beat him together once before. We'll do it again."

Barry looked surprised by the blatant display of affection, but didn't resist the hold. If anything, he burrowed closer, and though he still looked nervous, there was a small, genuine smile on his lips as well. "Yeah," he agreed, soft but fervent. "You're damn right we will."


	15. Chapter 15

Capturing Henry Allen was hardly the first sting operation Len had ever been on, though it certainly carried the most personal stakes. He couldn't remember ever being this wound up as he waited for the moment to spring the trap.

Pacing the prison's meeting room, waiting for the guards to bring Allen out, Len found a new appreciation for Barry's eternal impatience. It felt like every second was drawn out into an eon, each heartbeat distinct from the one before, trapped in an endless limbo.

If Len was this tense, he could only imagine how poor Barry was feeling. He was fairly certain the younger man hadn't gotten a wink of sleep in the few hours they'd tried to steal, no matter how desperately he needed it. Len's sleep hadn't exactly been restful, either. 

They'd found comfort in each other one last time in the breathless moments before the dawn, knowing it was probably the last chance they'd ever have. One way or another, everything was about to change. If they both survived the coming fight - and the odds were low, Len knew that - they would then be facing the question of whether Len would send Barry to jail.

The tiny earpiece communicator Cisco provided had made it through security without being noticed, keeping Len hooked in to the rest of the team. That had been a potential weak point in a plan that already had far too many holes for Len’s comfort. 

Cisco had assured Len he'd be able to access the prison security cameras if necessary, and tell Barry when to go in even if the comm was confiscated. Len wasn't sure what was more disturbing: that the guards were lax enough not to notice the comm unit, or that it would be so easy for Cisco to hack the system.

Barry's voice came over the comms now. "Is it normal for it to take this long? Could he be on to us?"

"It's fine," Len murmured, keeping his voice as low as possible and trying not to move his lips much. "Just be ready."

"I am." Barry sounded nervous, but determined. He was waiting in a janitor's closet less than a hundred feet from where Len was, having already vibrated his way through the prison walls as Len was coming in the front door. He'd also left the first pair of power-dampening cuffs taped to the bottom of the table in the meeting room, so Len would have access to them without having to bring them through security.

Barry swallowed audibly, then said in a more panicked tone, "Wait, what if he _doesn't_ use his speed, though? What if you actually get the cuffs on him first? We'll have no proof he's a meta. They'll force you to take the cuffs off again, and he'll be gone."

"Relax," Len ordered him, trying not to sound too obviously like he was speaking through gritted teeth. It was a thought that had haunted him since they'd come up with this plan in the first place, and he didn't need Barry's doubts on top of his own. This was going to be an incredibly delicate balancing act, if they wanted the best possible outcome. 

In his heart, he knew that if they couldn't prove Barry was innocent of the murders, Len _was_ going to let him go free, thief or not. Hell, he'd argue the younger man into running, if he had to. Yes, Barry should be punished for the laws he'd broken. But Len wouldn't see him suffer further for his father's actions.

Finally the scrape of the door opening drew Len's attention. He forced himself to relax, not wanting to alert Allen to the fact that something odd was going on. This was their only chance, and they had to do it right.

Allen came in, king of the room despite the cuffs and chains restricting his limbs. Len made note of the handcuffs as the two escorting guards chained Allen to the table. He would have to make sure they didn't interfere with his efforts to put the power-dampening cuffs on. 

Once Allen was secure, Len drifted over to speak to the guards, quietly enough that Allen wouldn't hear. "Listen, I need to press this guy for some information. I'm going to be provoking him, and he might get violent. No matter _what_ happens, do not come in here, understand?" He had to make sure Allen didn't have a chance to take innocent hostages.

The guards exchanged knowing looks, and one of them gave him a sly grin in response. "Sure thing, Detective. We've been having some... technical difficulties, lately. There's a chance the cameras might glitch."

Len growled as he realized the guard was offering to arrange things so the system wouldn't record any inappropriate force Len might apply to the prisoner. He made a mental note of the man's name. That sort of bullshit shouldn't be happening, let alone be such a casual offer. 

He let a touch of frost - the metaphorical kind - creep into his voice. "You'd best make certain that _doesn't_ happen. If I do manage to get a confession out of this bastard about his connection to the current LHK murders, you'd better believe I want it on tape."

The second guard looked much happier, while the first was suitably chastised. Also disgruntled and annoyed. Normally that would have irked Len, but at the moment it might mean the man would be a touch slower to _want_ to burst in, when Allen broke free of his chains.

As soon as they left, Len settled himself at the table across from Allen. The doctor smirked at him, delighted. "Mr. Snart. What a pleasure. A second visit in less than a week, how unprecedented.Having more troubles with your killer? Any new suspects?"

Through the long hours of fitful sleep, Len had spent most of his time planning how to approach this. A large part of him wanted to rub Allen's face in the fact that his plan had been exposed and ruined by Barry's bravery. The same bravery and strength of character that Henry was so certain his son didn't possess, and had tried his best to beat out of the boy early on.

They wanted Allen to betray his speed to some extent, enough to be caught on camera as a speedster, but they didn't want the man actually getting away. Which meant Len had to catch him by surprise, and hope Barry was right that instinct would prompt Allen to use his powers to dodge. At the same time, Allen needed to know there _was_ a threat of losing his powers, or he wouldn't think he needed to avoid being caught.

"I thought we should have another little chat," Len said in a patently false pleasant tone, reaching under the table and finding the cuffs right where they were supposed to be. "I have so _many_ things I want to say to you, asshole. But first, I've got a little gift for you, to make sure you don't go _running_ off on me."

Ripping the cuffs free, he slammed them down toward Allen's wrists. Len had just enough time to register the shock in Allen's eyes - and to fear that Barry had been wrong, and the man wouldn't have a chance to react and pull away.

Or worse, _would_ have the time to realize that the smartest thing for him to do would be to allow himself to be caught without displaying his powers, then demand that the warden remove the unapproved and highly inappropriate cuffs. Panic shot through Len as the first cuff closed around Allen's wrist, and he thought they'd made a horrible miscalculation.

Then the latch clicked, and Len saw he'd caught nothing but air. Allen was on the far side of the small room, free of all his restraints. He grabbed the knob of the door and did… _something_. A moment later bodies hit the door and the knob rattled, followed by frantic pounding and shouting on the other side. Whatever Allen had done, they weren't going to be interrupted quickly.

Since that played straight into their plans, Len wasn't going to object. In fact, he allowed himself a triumphant smile. "Thank you for that, Dr. Allen. I was worried you wouldn't be fast enough to get away and be caught on camera."

Allen sneered. "Oh, very clever, Detective. I see you've realized some small part of the truth. Tell me, does that little toy of yours actually work, or was it a bluff?"

"It works," Len assured him, scooping up the cuffs and opening them again. "Though if you fight it too hard, apparently the explosion is rather spectacular. I almost hope you try, it would solve quite a few problems."

"You say that as if you'll have a chance to put it on me." Allen laughed.

Len's back hit the wall before he even registered that he'd been picked up out of his chair and thrown across the room. His head slammed into the hard surface a moment later, sending little sparks of light dancing across his vision. Allen had him by the throat, threatening but not quite cutting off Len's air.

Allen pressed his free hand against Len's chest, vibrating it, preparing to reach inside Len's body. "You know, detective, I think I might even keep your heart. It's not worthy of my new collection, but it's a special trophy nonetheless. I'll be sure to put it next to my son's."

The air pressure in the room increased drastically as lightning seemed to blast out of the wall. Barry ploughed into his father, knocking Henry off Len and into the heavy steel table in the middle of the room. Henry made a pained noise as his spine hit the edge, and he sagged from the pain of the injury.

Barry stood protectively in front of Len, dressed in the Flash suit with the cowl up to hide his face from the cameras. His fists were clenched, his teeth bared in a snarl. When he spoke, his voice was distorted for the video. “There won’t be any more hearts for your collection, bastard. Not _ever_ again.”

Then there was nothing but lightning racing through the room, around and around far too fast for Len to follow, as the two metas battled at speeds beyond human comprehension.

Len dropped to his knees and pressed his hands to the floor, pouring out ice as fast as his powers could generate it. The cold affected _both_ speedsters, not just Henry, until they were moving slow enough for Len to see them again.

Barry had Henry pinned to the floor, grappling for control of the second power-dampening bracelet. "Give up and come quietly, or I’ll use whatever force I need in order to stop you. You’re finished." 

"Am I, _Flash_?" The amount of venemous sarcasm Henry managed to put into the Flash's name was impressive. "We'll just see about that."

With a heave and a grunt, Henry threw Barry off him and into the wall, stunning him for a crucial moment. Henry was on top of him an instant later, and Barry cried out in fear and denial as Henry slammed the power-dampening cuffs around Barry's wrists, instead.

"No!" Barry jerked his arms frantically, an instinctive attempt to break the heavy metal locking his wrists together. "Damn it, no!"

Horrified, Len lifted his hands and stopped his powers immediately. With the dampening cuffs on, Barry's healing wouldn't work, and he would freeze to death long before Len could hurt Henry. 

"You son of a bitch," Len snarled, and threw himself at Henry. At all costs, they had to make sure the man didn't leave this cell.

Henry dodged, but Len managed to brush his hand across the man's shoulder, and coated him with concentrated ice. That slowed him further, but 'slower' was relative where speedsters were concerned. Henry lashed out in retaliation with a series of punches that would have been rapid-fire coming from anyone else. 

Len blocked the first with his arm, created an ice shield to absorb the next three, but missed the sweeping leg that knocked his feet out from under him. He hit the icy ground hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. 

As he struggled to draw in air, he rolled to avoid the blow he knew was coming, but wasn't nearly fast enough. Henry socked him square in the eye with a punch hard enough to bounce Len's head off the floor, dazing him further.

Then Henry made the mistake of grabbing Len by the wrist, giving him a point of solid contact with the other meta. Len blasted outward with his ice for all he was worth, hoping he could encase the bastard long enough for Len to grab the second pair of cuffs, and get it on Henry. 

Henry cried out, but didn't let go, and he was _smirking_ for no reason Len could understand. Had the man lost his mind entirely?

Too late, Len saw the power dampening cuffs held in Henry's other hand. Shouting, Len tried to yank his arm free of the speedster's grip, but he'd already frozen them together to prevent _Henry_ from getting away. Laughing, the bastard slapped the first half of the cuffs around Len's free wrist and snapped it shut.

Immediately the waves of cold that had been radiating off Len subsided. The ice he'd already created, coating the floor, lower walls, and table legs remained - it would take a while for the room to warm enough to melt it all. But try as he might, Len couldn't generate so much as a lick of frost to add to it. 

Cisco had promised them these cuffs would be powerful enough to hold the Reverse Flash. Apparently, that made them more than strong enough to hold Captain Cold, and the Flash as well.

"Len!" Barry scrambled to his feet, clinging to the table to help him stay upright on the slippery ice. "The cuffs don't..."

Whatever he'd been about to say was cut off as Henry plunged his hand into his son's chest, right at heart level. The Reverse Flash had moved far too fast for Len to even see the lightning trail. Coughing and gasping, Barry grabbed Henry's wrist with both hands, as if he could prevent his father from ripping the organ free from his chest.

Without his powers, Barry was helpless. And without _his_ powers, Len was helpless to save him, too. He couldn't even throw himself physically at the asshole to try to knock him away, not when Henry's hand was wrapped around Barry's heart.

Len screamed, certain he was about to watch the younger man die in front of him. "No!"

"It would be so easy," Henry sneered at both of them. "It's embarrassing to me, that I was caught by people as inept and incompetent as you."

"Len..." Barry choked out, expression frantic and desperate as he struggled to draw enough air to speak. "It doesn't work on..."

With a heave, Henry flung Barry at the table, knocking it over and sending the younger man tumbling to the floor. For a moment it felt like Len's heart stopped as well, and his eyes snapped to Henry's hand, certain he would see dark, dripping flesh gripped in the man's pale fingers.

There was nothing, not even a trace of blood. Barry flailed weakly, coughing, but alive and apparently going to stay that way. Henry stood over him, contemptuous. “Not yet. You haven’t suffered enough, as you made me suffer. First I want you to understand how much of a failure you truly are.”

Relief crashed into Len so hard it made him dizzy. Never mind Henry’s pompous threats. Barry was alive, and that was all that mattered. Snarling, Len flung himself at the Reverse Flash, though he knew it was futile. 

He didn't even complete the first step before Henry grabbed him again, wrenching Len's cuffed arm behind his back in a painful lock, and snapped the second half of the cuffs in place on his second wrist. Len ground his teeth, refusing to allow even a grunt of pain to escape him and give the bastard satisfaction.

"Teaming up to work together. I didn’t expect that," Henry acknowledged, his tone magnanimous as if he thought he was granting them some kind of benediction. "You've stopped me from being exonerated, I’ll grant you that much. But you've also handed yourselves to me on such a beautiful silver platter. Unfortunately for you, I'm not nearly done with either of you."

The world spun and blurred around him, as something hard impacted Len's stomach. He found himself hanging upside down over Henry's shoulder, blood rushing to his head and making the nauseating effect of Reverse Flash's speed even worse. Only now did Len realize how much care the Flash had been taking with him, when he carried Len in the past. This was another level of fucked up, entirely.

They came to an abrupt halt - very abrupt, as Reverse Flash flung Len off his shoulder, letting him strike a hard concrete surface. _Floor_ , Len recognized vaguely, a moment before his head smashed into a second slab of concrete. _Wall_ , his dazed brain catalogued that, too.

With great effort he forced his head up and focused his gaze. They were in a dark, tiny space like a closet, but with two concrete sides, one wooden side with a door open to a lighted room beyond, and...

A safe, built into the space beneath the stairs that formed the ceiling.

Horror swept through Len as he recognized exactly where they were. This was the house where Barry had lived with his father for fifteen torturous years. Where his mother had been murdered by her husband in cold blood, and Barry had been locked into this cold, dank concrete coffin for hours at a time.

"Well now, detective." Henry loomed in the doorway, dim light outlining him from behind. "I think you need some time to reflect on the consequences of your actions. The neighbourhood is empty at this time of day and I’ve removed your little communicator, so no one but me will hear if you scream. Of course, you're welcome to do so regardless. I'll find it quite gratifying, I believe. I do hope you don't suffer from claustrophobia."

The door slammed closed, sealing Len into the dark, nearly-airless space. He threw himself at the door shoulder-first, but it was solidly built and didn't even rattle at the impact. Frantic, he tried again to use his ice, and when that didn't work, struggled uselessly to try to wrench his arms under his ass to get them in front of him. Len wasn’t nearly flexible enough to pull off the trick.

Barry was trapped in the prison room, unable to use his powers to escape. The moment the guards broke in, they'd arrest him as the Flash. He'd be sedated immediately to prevent him from escaping, probably before he could even try to explain what was really going on. The police at least knew the killer was Henry now, but how could they ever hope to catch him, let alone stop him?

Len was locked in the very hell he'd once saved Barry from, and there was nobody out there to rescue him in turn.


	16. Chapter 16

For one glorious moment, everything worked exactly as they'd planned. Henry had used his powers in full view of the cameras. Barry got the drop on him, and Len used his ice to slow the Reverse Flash enough for Barry to be able to handle him. Yes, Len had been forced to out himself as Captain Cold on film as well, but they'd always known that was likely to happen and it was a sacrifice Len had been willing to make.

Then Henry snapped the power-dampening cuffs around Barry's wrists, and everything went to fucking hell.

Whatever adjustments Cisco had made since the last tests, the cuffs were _really_ working now. Barry felt the speed drop away from him, everything crawling at a painfully sluggish pace that left him frustrated and panicked. Frantic, he tried to vibrate through the metal, but nothing happened. "No! Damn it, no!"

He couldn't break free. He couldn't hope to fight the Reverse Flash at normal speed, with no powers. It was all down to Len - and then Henry snatched that from them, too, snapping the second pair of cuffs on Len and cutting off his powers.

Everything happened so fast after that, Barry felt like his mind couldn't hope to keep up. He'd thought fighting the Reverse Flash had been impossible and frustrating before, but now he got a full taste of his own medicine. Before he quite understood what was happening, he found himself crashing into the table, sprawled on the floor - and Len and Henry vanished.

Horrified, Barry cried out, coughing as his chest was wracked with spasms. It didn't feel like Henry had ripped anything out this time, but he'd done some damage, and Barry was healing at a normal pace. The injury could kill him if he didn't get his speed back. 

For the moment, he forced himself to shove panicked thoughts of Len out of his mind, concentrating on the more immediate problem. "Cisco," he croaked. "Reverse Flash got me with the cuffs, how do I get them off?"

"Dude, you _can’t_." Cisco sounded horrified. "They'll only open as long as there's nothing triggering the pressure plates on the inside - once they're on something, they're locked. I made it so they need my thumbprint to unlock them, to buy time if things went wrong and the warden was demanding Len release Henry."

"Damn it!" Thumping at the door had turned to pounding, and Barry assumed the guards had pulled out a battering ram. They probably had all the heavy duty gear, ready to deal with what they thought was a rampaging prisoner in here.

Including, undoubtedly, the sedative darts to put down a metahuman criminal. With the cuffs suppressing his powers, the sedative would work on Barry like it would on any other person, and he would never get a chance to try to explain.

He wouldn't be able to tell them the horrifying danger that Len was in.

"Reverse Flash destroyed the door lock, but the guards will break through any minute," he told Cisco, his voice tight. "He took Len, I don't know where."

And Len believed the cuffs on his wrists would stop Captain Cold's powers. Barry's clever plan to help the older man gain control of his ice no longer seemed anywhere near as brilliant. The cuffs only worked on a meta that the STAR Labs duo had a chance to analyze and tweak the power dampening algorithm for - but Caitlin pointing out that Len's control was psychosomatic had given Barry the idea, and it had worked perfectly.

Too perfectly, because Len was now trapped and helpless and _shouldn't be_ , but Barry hadn't been able to warn him in time.

"I'm tracking the Reverse Flash." Cisco was subdued. "Which is great to know and all, but unless you can get out of there, it's not going to be very useful."

"We can tell the police," Caitlin put in, but the grief and regret in her voice said she knew the information would be far too late to do Len any good. "Give them more of the cuffs, so they'll have a fighting chance."

"No, they won't." Barry felt sick to his stomach. Even if they had a hundred of the cuffs, Reverse Flash was so damn fast, the police would _never_ get a pair onto him. The one and only chance for the world to stop the Lonely Hearts Killer had been Barry and Len's attempt right here, and it had been an epic fail.

A particularly hard bang at the door had the hinges groaning a protest. One or two more good hits, and the guards would be through. Panic crept up on Barry, shivering through his body with cold fingers, turning his limbs watery and threatening to steal the breath right out of his chest. Blackness crept up on the edges of his vision, a full blown attack trying to shut him down entirely.

This was all his fault. If he'd never become the Flash, had never started stealing, playing with Captain Cold, then his father wouldn't have had such a perfect opportunity to turn Len and Barry against each other. They'd been dancing to Henry’s tune every step of the way, all because Barry had enjoyed Len treating him like a desirable equal for a change, and gotten greedy.

Hell, maybe if he'd been better behaved as a kid, maybe if he hadn't angered his father so much, his mother wouldn't have been desperate enough to try to leave the way she did. Maybe she'd still be alive. They'd have lived in hell; there was no amount of behaving that Barry or his mother could have done to turn his father into a decent person. But Henry wouldn't have been a killer. Nora would still be alive, and all the other people his father had murdered, as well.

In the back of his mind, Len's voice scolded him for thinking such things, the words familiar from so many repetitions over the years. _'It's not your fault, Barry. You are not responsible for the actions of your father. You are not accountable for the reprehensible decisions he's made. He is insane, and there is nothing you could have done to stop him from being cruel and heartless.'_

As always, even in a memory, Len's support gave Barry strength. He drew on it, held it to him like a security blanket. Now, to accompany the voice, came the memory of Len holding him close, naked body moving against his, every fantasy Barry had ever had about the man come to life. Len believed in him. Len _loved_ him.

Barry could not, would not let him down.

Taking a deep breath, Barry shoved all his panic, all his fear and heartbreak and desolation, into his speed. He fed it with every barbed put-down his father had ever issued, every nasty comment and scathing rebuke. Every bit of rage and desperation and terror. And every last drop of his utter devotion to the man who had saved him.

The man he now _had_ to save in turn.

The cuffs heated up, searing fire against his arms. He screamed, a sound of pain and defiance both, and pushed more power into his speed. More... more... it felt like he was draining himself dry, like he would burn up and turn into ash that would blow away into nothing...

Metal fractured and circuits failed as the power dampener overloaded. Speed rushed back into Barry, and it became a race to see which would happen first - the explosion of the cuffs blowing his arms off, or his speed letting him vibrate through and dash away from the blast.

Speed won, _barely_. Barry grabbed the table and put it between him and the shattered fragments of metal shrapnel. Pieces thunked against the heavy table in a way that suggested they'd have been more than happy to cut him to shreds, and he gave himself a few split seconds to breathe and recover.

The battering ram finally forced the door off its hinges, and the solid slab of metal fell into the room in slow motion. Behind it, four guards in full riot gear brandished guns, mouths open with the start of their shouts. Barry vibrated out through the same wall he'd used to enter, the one closest to the outside of the prison. Two more walls, and he was free. 

Free, and completely lost and adrift. The plan had failed. Len was captured, probably being tortured right that moment. What the fuck was Barry supposed to do now?

He crashed into the Cortex, skidding to a halt in front of Cisco and Caitlin. The ache in his chest was subsiding, his healing repairing whatever damage Henry had done. He could feel the energy of his powers zinging through his body, hyperactive after being suppressed.

"Well, so much for hoping Reverse Flash would fight the cuffs and save us the trouble of killing him by blowing himself up." Barry paced back and forth, frustrated and afraid. “It won’t work.”

"How did you get out?" Cisco asked, surprised.

"I overloaded them and got my speed back just in time to dodge the shrapnel," Barry told him. "Which means he'll do the same. They won't be enough to hold him."

 _Maybe_ enough to give them a chance to sedate the bastard, though. And then Barry would end it once and for all, to be absolutely certain that Henry would never wriggle his way free to kill again.

Barry’s stomach churned at the thought. Len was right that there was a difference between acting in self-defence, and going in planning to murder someone. Killing a man who was bound and sedated was crossing a far more horrific line. But what other option did he have?

No. He couldn’t take the risk. Barry would end his father’s reign of terror, permanently. Even if it cost him his very soul.

There was, however, still the small problem of getting the damn cuffs on Reverse Flash in the first place. "Cisco, where did he end up?"

"He booked it to a suburb, actually." Cisco sounded distinctly puzzled. “Hasn’t moved since.”

"A suburb?" Caitlin leaned over and peered at the screen, frowning. "That's strange. There's nothing in that area but old houses and quiet streets. Why there?"

A sinking feeling crept over Barry. Why a suburb? There were only two reasons he could think of. One, Reverse Flash had already picked out his next victim, and had gone there to capture the poor girl along with Len. 

Or two, he was returning to familiar ground.

"Is it in Riverview?" he asked, forcing the words out through a throat gone tight with terror. "North side, on Halloway Drive?"

"Yeah, how'd you know?" Cisco stared at him like he thought Barry had developed a new power to read minds.

"Because that's where I grew up." Pulling the cowl off to hang down his back, Barry rubbed at his face. His hands were trembling - his whole body was shaking, actually. "The bastard took Len to my old house. Probably holding him in the room where..."

His voice caught, and he couldn't make himself continue. The punishment room. As a kid, that wretched hole in the wall had been traumatizing enough all by itself. After the night he'd spent locked in with his mother's slowly cooling corpse, Barry had gained an entirely new definition of 'horrifying'.

And Henry knew that. Knew exactly what effect the threat of that room would have on Barry - how the mere thought of it threatened to undo him, plunging him into the nightmare of his childhood. Ten years of therapy and soul-searching struggle, and in one awful moment it was as if he was right back where he'd started. Nothing but a scared, helpless boy.

"What are you going to do?" Caitlin was subdued, and when he opened his eyes and turned to face her, he saw sorrow and pity in her expression.

Oddly, the pity put some steel back into Barry's spine, forcing him to straighten his shoulders and even out his breathing before he hyperventilated. Nobody got to _pity_ him. He wasn't a victim, not anymore. For all that his father had done to him, Barry had survived it. Len had drummed that into him, over and over. Joe, Lisa, even Mick... all of them had believed in him, stood by him through the worst the world could throw at him.

Contempt and hatred, Barry could handle. When people blamed him for his father's actions, treated him like garbage for being the son of a serial killer, Barry took it and came back swinging. He didn't really know what to do with comfort or compassion, but Len and the others had slowly gotten him used to the idea of accepting those positive supports.

But pity... pity only made him angry. Pity implied that people were looking down on him, that they thought less of him. He knew Caitlin didn't mean it that way, knew she probably thought she was being sympathetic, but it didn't matter. Barry would _not_ be pitiable.

And that meant he couldn't let his father win. Len was counting on him.

Drawing a deep breath, he let it out slowly, trying to release his fear and anxiety with it. "Cisco, make another pair of the cuffs. Caitlin, see if you can replicate the drug they use to knock out the metas, or something enough like it to do for now. I'm going after Len."


	17. Chapter 17

The seconds it took him to run from STAR Labs to his old neighbourhood felt like they lasted an eon to Barry. With his mind going at top speed, he had more than enough time to doubt himself, second-guess, doubt some more, and panic. Then he would picture Len, steel himself, and start the cycle over again.

He paused at the end of the street, breathing hard in a way that had nothing to do with the effort of running, and stared at the building he'd lived in for the first fifteen years of his life. The building his mother had died in. He couldn't think of it as 'home', not really - it had never truly _been_ a home, just a place where he lived.

Since the moment he'd made the decision to beg Len for help ten years ago, Barry hadn't once set foot in his father's house. Other people had packed up his things for him. The house had been sold years ago, though he couldn’t imagine who would want to live in the home of a serial killer.

Then again, some people did get off on that kind of thing. Barry had gotten some scattered _fan mail_ over the years from deeply disturbed people, and he assumed his father had received more. 

Whoever had bought it, Barry was morbidly certain they were no longer alive. Henry had undoubtedly been intending to make this move from the very start, and he was brooking no opposition to his carefully laid out plans. 

One more kill to add to his mental tally of the people Barry hadn’t been able to save. He _was_ making the right decision to end Henry’s life.

Maybe if he kept telling himself that, he would stop wanting to throw up at the thought.

It looked as pristine as the last time he'd seen it, with fresh paint on the woodwork, a well-tended lawn and flowerbed, and lacy curtains hanging in the windows. A horrible shiver of deja-vu crawled down Barry's spine, and he half expected his father to come to the door, ready to lecture him for being late coming home from school.

"Has he gone anywhere else?" If Henry had left, it would be a great deal easier for Barry to get in and rescue Len. Henry might still be expecting Barry to be trapped at the prison, so maybe he wouldn't be as careful as he could be...

"Nope, he's still there," Cisco confirmed through the comm unit, dashing that hope. "Unless he's travelling through the ground or something, I guess. Can you do that?"

"I don't think so, not for any real distance. It takes a _lot_ of power to move through things." Barry shook his head. "He could probably get farther than me, but probably still not that far. Going through a wall or putting my hand through something is one thing, but travelling through something more than one step wide would be almost impossible."

There was a chance that Henry was moving through the sewers or something, he supposed, but he simply couldn't imagine his father sinking to that level. No pun intended. Nor would Henry think there was any need to hide his movements, unaware that Barry had allies who could track him.

Which meant he was still in there, and Barry was going to have to face him alone.

Drawing a breath, he forced himself to start moving again. Running up to that house might have been the single hardest thing he'd ever done. Stepping foot inside it was going to be worse. But failure simply wasn't an option.

It was the middle of the day. Most people were at work, the kids were all at school. The street was quiet, nobody around to hear anything suspicious from the supposedly empty house. That was for the best. The last thing they needed was somebody calling the cops, or worse, poking their nose in to see what was happening, and ending up as a hostage.

Or as a body. Barry desperately did not want there to be any more bodies in this case, ever.

Ten feet from the front door, a darker red streak blasted out of the house toward him. Barry had half expected the attack, so he was able to dodge the Reverse Flash, both of them skidding to a halt in the front yard. Barry wasn't sure whether to curse or be grateful. Outside meant no walls for Henry to come at him through, but the open space also let Reverse Flash to take advantage of his greater speed.

"Well, well." Henry regarded Barry with faint surprise in his eyes, and somewhat less contempt than usual. "You made it out of the prison. I thought I'd be entertaining your pet detective with news stories about the capture of the Flash, and have to break you out when I was ready to deal with you. I'm marginally impressed."

There had been a time in his life when Barry would have done _anything_ to hear those words, to see that expression. As a small child, his father's approval had been the only thing he wanted in the world. Not just because it would mean avoiding punishment, but because he'd loved his father as any child did.

Even now there was a tiny part of him deep inside that ached in response to the praise, backhanded though it was. He hated himself for it, but couldn't stop feeling it. What did that say about Barry, that he still longed for the approval of a monster like his father?

"You're done," he told the Reverse Flash, vibrating with rage and hatred as much as speed. "I'm ending this now. I don't care what it takes. I don't care what I have to do. _I will not let you hurt Len_."

With a scream he charged forward, pouring everything he had into his speed, trying to be fast enough to at least face Henry on even footing.

Henry dodged, starting both of them circling around each other, feinting and parrying. "Such passion," he said, speculative. "That seems beyond your usual pathetic fawning over him. I was surprised that he forgave your betrayal enough to work with you. But I suppose if you're bending over for him, it's not surprising he might bend his precious rules in turn."

"Shut your mouth," Barry snarled, infuriated by the dismissive, derisive evaluation of his relationship with Len. "You don't know anything about what love even means." 

He lunged forward again, and Henry took off running. That turned it into a speedster race as they blasted their way up and down the street, in and out of neighbours' back and front yards, around and over the houses and cars.

Again and again, Barry _almost_ got his hands on Reverse Flash. He landed a few glancing blows, but nothing nearly solid enough to stagger the bastard. He tried throwing lightning again, but only succeeded in frying somebody's minivan. 

Reverse Flash was laughing, _toying_ with him. Not snatching Barry's organs out this time, but running circles around him, letting Barry wear himself out trying to catch up.

Frustration built alongside weariness, both of them sapping Barry's strength and will. He was nowhere near getting the cuffs on Henry. How the hell was he supposed to win this fight if he couldn't even touch Reverse Flash? How was he supposed to save Len when Barry still couldn't save himself?

Len. 

The answer was still Len, and Captain Cold's ice to slow the Reverse Flash down. Barry _had_ to find a way to reach him and tell him that the cuffs didn't actually affect his powers. Only together did they have any hope of winning this.

He waited until Reverse Flash was heading away from the house with Barry on his tail, then reversed his direction abruptly. If he could tell Len the cuffs didn’t work, Len could break himself free. Henry wouldn’t be expecting Len to join the fight, and they might be able to catch him by surprise

Except getting the words out at a speed Len could understand would take at least a few seconds, and that was _ages_ in a speedster battle. Never mind how long Len would need to break free. Damn it, he needed to grab Len and get out, regroup to try again later.

Two steps from the door, Reverse Flash barreled into Barry from the side, tackling him back onto the lawn. The impact was hard enough to drive the breath from Barry's lungs, and then Henry crouched over him with a knee grinding into Barry's mid-section, preventing him from getting the air back. 

Black spots already danced in his vision, but Barry wasn't giving up yet. If Henry was pinning him down, that meant he was in touch range. Snarling, Barry snatched the dampening cuffs off his belt and flailed to try to get them around Reverse Flash's wrist.

Snorting, Henry grabbed the cuffs from him and tossed them aside. He gave Barry a disgusted look. "Did you really think the same trick would work twice?" 

He pressed his hand against Barry's chest, vibrating, ready to plunge inside. Shouting, Barry twisted beneath him, struggling to get free. 

Henry smirked. "Careful. Wouldn't want me to miss and grab the wrong thing, would you? Even we can't live long without a heart. At least, I assume not. Until I test it on you, I won't know for certain, but I'm not ready for that step just yet."

Nothing had changed since their last fight. Henry was still faster and stronger. Now Henry would start causing real damage again, slowing Barry further, and lessening his chances of saving Len with every blow.

Worse, it sounded like Henry was planning to torture him. Probably he'd drag Barry down to the punishment room and do it there, where Len would have to watch. Maybe take turns harming each of them, to torment the other.

Barry couldn't change his speed or strength. His only hope was to fight _smarter_ , and somehow outwit his father. No matter how hard his panicked mind raced, he couldn't come up with any better plan than 'free Len and fight him together'.

He was _so close_ to Len right now, maybe twenty feet away if he were able to go through the ground and foundation of the house, but there was no way Len could hear him from here.

If he were able to go through the ground...

Summoning every last reserve of speed he had, Barry synced with the earth and slipped down into it. He drew a deep breath and closed his eyes as the dirt swallowed him whole. Somehow, he managed to do it fast enough that Reverse Flash's grab missed him before he was too deep to reach.

Henry would assume Barry was trying to travel a short distance, then pop up from an unexpected direction. There was no reason for him to chase Barry through the solid earth and waste his energy. That might buy him enough time to get Len free.

Concentrating hard, Barry turned toward the house, angling what he hoped was the right amount downward, and fought his way through the dirt, rocks, and other debris that made up the earth. His heart thundered in his ears with the effort, lungs already aching with the lack of air, and the worst headache he'd ever experienced pounded in his temples. 

It felt like someone was plunging an icepick through his skull, over and over. He'd never tried to move through something that was thicker than the width of his hand, and now he was attempting to walk through twenty feet of material. Barry wanted to scream with the agony of it, but if he did, he'd lose the battle against the urge to breathe all the sooner.

His hands hit something much denser than the dirt around him. The foundation of the house. He pushed through it, straining with everything he had, praying that he'd found the right spot. If he was off by even a few feet, he'd have to pass through pipes and walls as well as the foundation, and he didn't think he had the strength left.

The density slowed him further, and for the first time in his life it felt like his speed was almost exhausted. With one last, massive push he forced himself through - and burst into blessed, empty space.

Barry collapsed onto the cool concrete, gasping for air. It was pitch black, a familiar stifling darkness that he knew all too well. The sound of his frantic breathing bounced back to him off the walls of the tiny enclosed space, the chill of the concrete already seeping into his bones. His flailing hand bumped against something cool and fleshy... an arm...

Suddenly he was ten years old again, stuffed into the small space with his mother's corpse, struggling to breathe through his sobs and the bruising on his throat. There was no rescue coming, no more loving mom to shield him from the worst of his father's temper, no hope of ever escaping. He was trapped, trapped with no way out, he'd lost the only person in the world who loved him and now the hell of his life would never end...

Barry screamed, and kept screaming, lost to the demons of his mind.


	18. Chapter 18

The last thing Len expected was a burst of bright lightning and a body flinging itself through the solid concrete wall. There wasn't enough time before the light vanished for him to see anything but a man-shaped blur falling to the ground. Reverse Flash? Why come from that direction?

Whoever it was, they collapsed on the floor, gasping like a fish on land, making a horrible low moaning sound like they were in agony. There was no reason the Reverse Flash would come in here if he was injured, so that meant... "Barry?"

A flailing hand struck his arm, and suddenly the other person in the room was screaming. It wasn't the sort of short, sharp shriek that burst out of you when you were startled or frightened or hurt. This went on and on, hysterical and heart-wrenching, with only the briefest gulps of air choked down in between to fuel the next scream.

Len shuddered in a visceral reaction. He knew that voice, knew those terrified cries, though he'd never seen Barry in a panic attack _this_ bad. "Barry! Damn it, Barry, listen to me. Hear my voice. It's Len. Listen to me!"

There was no response, not that he'd really expected one. Barry was too lost in his own personal nightmare, mind trapped in the past and unable to even recognize what was happening in the present. 

With his hands still cuffed behind his back, Len couldn't reach out and gather the younger man into his arms like he wanted to. The best he could do was squirm over to press his shoulder against Barry's, trying to offer a solid anchor of comfort in the darkness.

If anything, that made it worse. Barry scrambled away from Len, wedging himself into the far corner. The screams finally faded, but the hoarse, frantic whimpers that replaced them weren't much of an improvement. Holding himself very still, trying not to provoke the younger man further, Len tried to think what to do.

If he couldn't touch Barry to anchor him, there was no choice but to try to do it with his voice. "Barry. Come back to me, love." The word felt strange on his tongue, but at the same time, as natural as breathing. He kept his voice low and even, the kind of tone you'd use on a frightened animal - or a terrified child. "I need you to hear me. You're not alone. You're not trapped, you can vibrate yourself out of here any time you want. _Breathe_ , Barry. Please, lover, just breathe and be here with me."

Normally when Len tried to break the kid out of a bad attack, he promised safety. Swore that he would protect Barry, that Henry Allen was locked away behind bars and would never hurt his son again. Under the circumstances, Len could no longer make that promise.

If his words were having any effect, it wasn't noticeable. Barry was still sobbing, choked gasps for air threatening to make him hyperventilate. Strangely, he wasn't vibrating, maybe too exhausted and hurt. Len gave thanks for the small miracle, because if Barry had been functioning at super speed, it would mean that every second passing was an eon of torture for the younger man.

Cursing under his breath, Len shifted around until he was on his knees, then shuffled his way slowly over to Barry's corner. "It's okay, Barry. I'm here. You're not a little kid any more, and you're not helpless. I love you, damn it, and I'm not losing you just when you've finally opened my eyes to how good it could be for us." Despite his best efforts, Len's voice rose with strain and fear as he spoke, until he was practically shouting the last words. "You are _not_ allowed to give up on me!"

"Len?"

The whisper was thready and hoarse, so ragged Len could barely hear it, and it sounded as sweet as any symphony could ever be. "Barry!"

"Oh, god." Barry still sounded shaken and frightened, but he reached out to brush tentative fingers against Len's shoulder. The second touch was firm, hand closing around Len's upper arm like Barry was drowning and Len was his only lifeline. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, I just... this place, I can't... I _can't_."

"You can," Len encouraged him, though he wasn't sure exactly what it was Barry couldn't do. Exist without breaking down, probably. Who could blame him? But Len needed him functional or neither of them were getting out of here alive. "Just hang on to me. I got you out of here once, I'll damn well find a way to do it again."

Barry fumbled his way down Len's arm, searching for his hand, and grunted when he discovered Len's wrists bound behind his back. "The cuffs! Damn it, I'm an idiot. Len, they don't work on you."

The words made no sense. "Pretty damn sure they do," Len growled, frustrated. "You think I haven’t tried freezing them enough to shatter? How did you get yours off?"

"I overloaded them." With every word Barry's voice grew stronger, as he used his focus on the current situation to drag himself out of the nightmare of the past. "We’d blow your hands off if I tried it with you, and no, I can't vibrate through them from the outside, I’d just get my hands stuck in the metal when the dampening field hit me. But you don't need me to. I'm telling you, they _don't work_ on you. They never did!"

"What the hell are you talking about?"

Barry curled his hand around Len's arm, leaning against his shoulder. "What Caitlin said, about your control issues being psychosomatic, gave me the idea. The real reason the power dampener is still no good for police or prison use is because they only work when they've been calibrated for a meta's specific powers. Right now, that means they only work on speedsters. If they have any effect on you at all, it would be marginal."

"Bullshit." Len stared at the darkness where Barry must be, incensed. "That's... for god's sake Barry, you _risked your life_. What if I'd lost control in the middle of having sex with you?"

"You can scold me about the risk later." Barry leaned in and gave him a quick kiss. "Right now, you need to freeze them and break free."

Scowling, Len turned his focus to the feel of the cuffs, wrapped around his wrists behind his back. The metal felt warm to him, though it would likely be cool to anyone else. He reached for his power, flexing his fingers, willing frost to form. Nothing. Grunting, he tried again, straining for the ice that had come all too readily since the day he got his powers.

Was it his imagination, or did the metal chill? Sweating with effort, Len fought with his own subconscious for control of his power, but the best he could manage was a tiny, gradual drop in temperature. 

After trying so hard and failing earlier to use his powers, apparently his mind was thoroughly convinced that they worked, no matter what Barry said. Or else Barry was simply wrong. 

"Damn it, they _are_ working," he insisted, panting. "If I try too hard, they'll blow up. Cisco must have managed to get it operational without realizing it."

Barry made a frustrated sound. "No, I'm telling you..."

The door crashed against the wall, heavy wood shattering at the force of the impact. Reverse Flash loomed in the doorway, backlit by the basement light, giving him the appearance of a menacing monster. "There you are, you little bastard. I should have known you'd go running straight for help, tail between your legs. Stand up and face me like a man."

Barry made a stifled noise of terror, and rage swept through Len like a wildfire. It was all too easy to imagine himself in child Barry's place; cold, hungry, and frightened, looking up at the man who had tortured him again and again, without ever leaving a mark. What would it be like, living with the knowledge that any tiny transgression, real or imagined, would get you thrown into this dank, airless room for hours at a time?

How awful would it be, looking up at that haloed figure after each punishment, simultaneously hating his punisher while being sick with gratitude at the momentary reprieve of release?

With an awkward lurch, Len shoved himself between Barry and the doorway, a physical shield to protect the young man from the living nightmare. "Back off," Len growled, infuriated beyond reason. "I told you before, the only way you'll touch him again is over my dead body."

"Yes, detective." Reverse Flash sounded at once triumphant and condescending. "That's exactly the plan." He grabbed Len by the front of his shirt and hauled him out of the tiny room.

"No!" Barry blurred and dissolved into lightning. Henry tossed Len aside, or maybe Barry tackled him out of the other speedster's grasp, it was impossible to tell.

Len hit the wall hard, and slid down to his knees. The basement was filled with lightning, red and orange streaks going around and around in a dizzying display of power. At least they were out of that damn room now, but Len already knew Barry couldn't take Henry one on one.

They _needed_ Len's ice. It was their only hope. Every moment that passed was an eternity of battle for Barry, and it was clear he had already been exhausted and hurting when he tumbled into the punishment room.

The cuffs didn't work on Len. The cuffs _didn't work on Len_. He chanted the words over and over in his mind, trying to convince himself, struggling to reach the frozen core of power that lived inside him. Normally it was all he could do to hold the ice back. Surely it could never be this difficult if not for a real power dampening field. Barry had to be wrong.

No.

 _The cuffs didn't work on him_.

Or Barry and Len were both going to die.

Ice burst out of Len's body, so fast and fierce it came from everywhere at once, not just his hands. Pale blue light radiated from him along with the ice, a cool counter to the hot oranges of the speedsters. The cuffs froze, then shattered when he tugged. Arms free, Len spread his hands in the air and _shoved_ with all his might.

Between one breath and the next, the entire basement of the house was covered in solid ice. Len heard concrete cracking under the strain of the sudden temperature change, and the exposed wooden ceiling groaned as the weight of the house pressed against the frozen boards. Swearing, Len directed his power lower, concentrating on the area just above the floor, trying not to cause the whole damn house to come crashing down on their heads.

The speedsters reappeared, lightning fading as the cold struck them and slowed them down. Once he could pick out a target, Len zeroed in on Reverse Flash and blasted the asshole with as much ice as he could summon. He was sweating with the effort, but the skintight suit Cisco had built him to go beneath his clothes kept him cool. For the first time, Len could put literally everything he had into his powers with no fear of overheating.

Realizing what was happening, Barry spun and shoved his father hard, knocking the older man in Len's direction. Taking the opportunity, Len grabbed Henry by the ankle before the other meta noticed he was in danger. With that connection, he was able to truly focus his power, pouring the ice directly over Henry's body.

Gasping for air, Henry struggled, but it was too late. Len froze the bastard's feet solid, so solid they would shatter if he tried to run. It was cruel and horrible, but there was nothing else he could think to do to try to contain the speedster.

Henry collapsed, half sitting against the wall, clinging to it to keep him upright. Barry stood over his father, panting and shivering, and the expression on his face was truly awful. Pain, rage, fear, despair, hatred... all of that and more flowed over the young man's features, his eyes harder than Len had ever seen him.

"Barry, no," Len blurted out, terrified of what he saw in his lover's eyes. "He's subdued. If you kill him now it _will_ be murder, not self defense!"

"I'll never be free of him," Barry said, wretched and miserable. " _Never_. He'll find a way out, he'll come back _again_. Hell, the therapists are always going on about how I need closure. This would do it." He crouched and pressed a hand against his father's chest, and Len saw it blur.

"Oh, yes," Henry ground out, the words distorted by the way his teeth were clenched against the cold. "Go on, son. Make me proud. Be a man after all."

"Don't sink to his level!" Len tried to throw himself at Barry, tackle him away from Henry, _anything_. He’d kill the bastard himself, murder or not, if it meant protecting Barry from having to carry that weight on his soul forever.

But the moment Len attempted to stand, dizziness crashed over him and sent him back to his knees, panting. He'd used too much power, thrown everything he had into freezing the Reverse Flash, and he had nothing left.

Barry screamed one last time, a horrible sound of agonized defiance. The room flashed with lightning again, almost too fast to register. When it cleared, Barry was standing over the Reverse Flash's body, now lying in a broken heap on the floor. Henry was silent, unmoving, and Len's heart stopped in his chest.

Too late. It was too late. There was no saving Barry from this. No getting past it, no ignoring it. Barry being a thief was something Len _might_ have been able to find a way to live with. Certainly it hadn't seemed to trouble Barry in any way.

But being a killer was a different thing entirely. That changed a person in unspeakable ways - all the more so for Barry, with his horrific history. Len's heart broke for the younger man, even as he raged at Barry for making the choice that would irrevocably destroy the fragile hope they'd built between them.

Visibly trembling, Barry turned to Len. His voice was hoarse when he spoke. "I promised I would turn myself in to you when this was over. I will, I just... I need some time. I have to deal with this before they lock me into a coma forever and I'm forced to live in the nightmares. I love you, and I'm sorry."

"I..." Len didn't even get the single word out before Barry was gone, leaving Len alone in the room with Henry's body.

Numb and exhausted, Len fought the urge to simply collapse and pass out. Tempting though the idea was on some level, sooner or later somebody was going to report the Flash battle that had obviously happened out there before Barry crashed into the hidden room under the stairs. 

It would go much better for Len if he was the one to call it in, instead of being found passed out with Henry Allen's body. The last thing he wanted to do was end up in jail alongside Barry.

Standing was out of the question at the moment, so he forced himself to crawl over to the Reverse Flash. There was no sign of an injury, no bloody wound, but that meant nothing when speedsters were involved. Habit made him reach out to the man's throat, checking for a pulse he knew wouldn't be there.

Except the flesh beneath his fingertips quivered with life, a heartbeat so fast it was like the flutter of a hummingbird's wings, nearly indistinguishable as separate beats.

Astonished, Len gaped at the 'body', and this time paid more attention to the details. Allen's arms had been wrenched behind his back, held together with the power dampening cuffs clamped tight around his wrists. There was a discarded hypodermic needle on the floor, a single amber drop of liquid still clinging to the tip, that must have been an incredibly powerful sedative. A matching puncture mark on Allen's neck sealed the deal.

 _Barry hadn't killed his father_.

Stunned with relief, Len collapsed onto his ass, shaking all over with adrenaline and reaction. Barry wasn't a killer. He'd made the right choice after all. God, Len was _so fucking proud_ of him. He'd tell Barry so as soon as he saw the young man again - right after he got done scolding the brat for taking off and leaving Len to clean up the mess.

And for not sticking around so Len could comfort him through the aftermath, damn it.

Henry hadn't bothered searching Len, hadn't needed to with the cuffs holding his arms behind his back. Len pulled out his cell phone, hesitated with his finger over the screen, then called the STAR Labs number Cisco had given him. 

It rang once, then Cisco snatched it up with a breathless answer. "Are you guys okay?"

"I take it Barry's not come back to you?" It was a long shot, but Len had hoped maybe he'd be able to catch his lover there.

"He whipped through here too fast to see and took off again." Cisco sounded shaken. "Left the Flash suit behind, and it looked like he was headed for Starling City before the satellite lost him. You weren't answering your communicator. What _happened_?"

"Allen is subdued, and contained for the moment." Len glanced at Allen, still half certain the bastard would pop up at any second, recovered from the sedative, even though he knew the cuffs meant the drug would be processed at a normal human rate. “I need to call the police to come get him, but I wanted to check with you, first."

"I've got copies of the video from the prison," Cisco said. "There are shots of Henry Allen using his speedster powers, and I isolated a few frames that show both Flash and Reverse Flash at the same time. The confession is audible, so Barry should be in the clear, just like we hoped."

"A few frames?" Len repeated, confused. "There was quite a bit of time after I froze the room to slow them down, where both of them were moving more or less at normal speed."

"Yeah, about that..." Cisco sounded smug. "We've got everything we needed from _before_ you went all Revenge of the Ice King on them. So if, perhaps, something about the battle between two speedsters caused an EMP that fried the cameras, leaving only static on the video..."

Len's heart pounded with sudden hope. "You could do that? Are you _certain_? Every copy, not just the ones you have, with no trace of tampering?"

"Who do you think you're talking to?" Cisco was insulted. "It's all set up. Say the word, I press a button, and it's done. Nobody else was in the room, so you, Barry, and the Reverse Flash are the only ones who can say what really happened."

Trying not to get ahead of himself, Len quickly reviewed the events of the - morning? Had it really been such a short time since he'd arrived at the prison? 

There were good, solid reasons for Allen to have kidnapped Len, reasons that had nothing to do with him being Captain Cold. It would be hard to explain how Cold had gotten into the locked prison room - no, wait. The Flash could have brought Cold in, once it was clear the speedster wouldn't be able to subdue Allen alone. Then both the thief and the hero would have left together, chasing down Allen and Len. Likewise, all the ice here at the house could be explained by Cold and Flash fighting Allen, while Len sat helplessly by and watched. 

Captain Cold's identity did not need to be exposed.

"Do it," he said, feeling like he had to squeeze the words out through a throat gone closed with relief. He'd fully expected to have to out himself, had been ready to make that sacrifice, but it wasn't like he _wanted_ the world to know who he really was.

The situation would probably drastically increase the number of people putting money on him as Cold in the station's betting pool, but Len could live with that.

"Aaaand it's done." Cisco sounded smug. "Will you be coming back here? After you deal with the cops and Reverse Flash, I mean. I'm still working on that hero suit for you, I need to run some tests to make sure it works the way I think it will. Caitlin's rigging the infirmary equipment to be able to better handle your weird-ass hypothermic body."

"Are you... offering to be my permanent backup?" Len was sure he was misunderstanding.

"Well, yeah." Cisco laughed. "Are you kidding me? Working with the city's superhero, how cool is that? Pun definitely intended, by the way. Team Cold, that's us!"

Backup. The thought was almost foreign to Captain Cold, even though it was a basic, ingrained principle for Leonard Snart the cop. He'd been working alone this whole year, with no help and no support. At least, so he'd thought. In the space of a few weeks he'd discovered that his friends and family had been supporting him all along, and now STAR Labs was offering to help in whatever way he needed.

"Deal." It was as if a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. Len felt giddy with it - or maybe that was the exhaustion and adrenaline aftermath talking. "There's going to be a lot of inquiries and interrogations to go through, so I likely won't be free for a few days. I'll hit you up as soon as I have the chance."

"Awesome. By then we'll have everything ready." He could practically hear Cisco rubbing his hands together in glee. "Don't worry, I'm sure Barry will be back."

He would be. Len had no doubt of that. Barry had promised to return, and not killing Henry proved that the younger man _was_ who Len had always believed him to be, thief or not. Barry would keep that promise.

Len still had to decide what he was going to do when that happened, but for now, he would take the victory over the Reverse Flash and revel in it.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For visual reference: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-e8kGzwIXiRA/VJsA6T_yGRI/AAAAAAAAxdU/Kff68EDduJ8/s1600/The-Flash-captain_cold_concept_art_by_John_Gallagher.jpg
> 
> This is early concept art that was done for Captain Cold in the DC TV universe. I noticed in the most recent Leo episode that he had a vaguely similar jacket, with the same jagged edged decoration around the neck but in two shades of blue, hee. I will forever hold out hope that they'll actually give us a version of Len with his powers and this look. (Though I don't know why he's holding his cold gun AND appears to have ice powers, lol.)

It took a week before Barry felt like he had enough of a handle on his emotions to risk returning to Central City. Really _dealing_ with them would take much, much longer - time he likely would never get, since they'd be throwing him into a medical coma the moment he turned himself in. But at least he was able to bear the thought of being in the same city as his father again, let alone the same prison.

If he was being honest, Barry had almost refused to return at all. It would have been so, so easy to start running and never stop. The overwhelming temptation clawed at him with a desperate need to stay free.

But he'd promised Len. He'd promised, and he wouldn't disappoint his lover again.

Besides, a life spent on the run, forever looking over his shoulder, never seeing Len again... that prospect was nearly as bleak as the idea of being arrested. At least in a coma, Barry wouldn't be aware of the emptiness of his life.

After a quick trip through STAR Labs to grab the Flash suit, Barry circled through the city a few times until he found Captain Cold. The city's hero was standing on the rooftop of Central General Hospital, one foot propped on the raised edge as he leaned over his knee, looking out over his domain. Barry skidded to a halt on the roof behind him, and Len turned to face him.

"Damn." The word was pulled out of Barry on an impressed sigh, his eyes going wide as he took in Captain Cold's new look. Cisco had outdone himself. 

Dark combat pants and boots were not too different from what Len had worn before, but the upper half was new. A black tactical vest covered Len's chest, padded and contoured - knowing Cisco, it was probably flexible armour. Over that was a sleeveless jacket of vibrant blue, with white around the neck falling into jagged edges and more armour on the shoulders. 

A hood covered Len's head, and a blue domino mask clung to his face, hiding more of his features than the goggles had. He looked like a brighter, frostier version of the Arrow in Starling City, actually. Maybe Cisco had taken inspiration from the few clear shots of the deadly vigilante that had been released to the public.

Odd, transparent gloves covered Len's hands and arms past the elbow. Barry squinted and thought he could make out traces of circuitry buried in the flexible plastic. There was a crystalline, fractal design over the whole surface.

Seeing Barry’s interest, Len flexed his hands, calling on his power. Brilliant blue light surged through the gloves, refracting through the crystal structure until it was nearly too bright to look at. Ice burst into being in the air between Len's hands, faster and stronger than Barry had ever seen him call it before.

"Power amplifier," Len told him, his voice deep and rough in a way no human could actually manage, suggesting Cisco had come up with some sort of electronic distortion device. "Same tech as the dampeners, but reversed and tweaked to my abilities. I can make a ramp off this rooftop and slide all the way down, keep going through half the city. It's sped up my response times considerably."

That explained why Len was up here, a building in the middle of downtown, tall enough to give him plenty of momentum without being so tall that the ramp would be too steep to survive the drop. It was also impressive as all hell, and Barry whistled. "Not half bad, Cisco."

Releasing his power, Len reached up and tapped his ear, probably turning off the comm unit. Barry breathed a sigh of relief. This conversation was going to be difficult enough without knowing they had an avid audience. 

“The kid’s got talent,” Len acknowledged. His voice was normal, so he must have turned off the distortion along with the comms. “They’ve both been a huge help.”

Barry wasn’t sure what else to say. The awkward small talk wasn’t what he’d come here for, and they both knew it. For long moments they stood there, staring at each other. Finally Barry broke the silence. "I'm sorry."

"For what? Rescuing me?" Len raised an eyebrow at him, the motion somehow still visible despite the mask. Maybe it was just the snarky look in his eyes, and Barry knew all too well the expression that went with that look. "Stopping a murderer? Doing the right thing and not killing your father? Coming back like you promised?"

That was... not quite how Barry had expected this to go. He frowned. "For running off in the first place. I shouldn't have left you to deal with the mess."

"In some ways I'd have been more worried if you _hadn't_ need some time to figure out how to cope, honestly.” Len shrugged. “That was a hell of a traumatic experience for you. I'm not entirely over it, myself. I knew you'd be back, just like you promised."

Barry flushed, that simple statement of Len's belief in him affecting him more powerfully than he would have thought it could. "I guess this is it, then. Captain Cold finally catches the Flash."

"Mmm." Len didn't seem to be in any rush to arrest him, instead turning to look out over the city again. "Have you seen the news about the Lonely Hearts case?"

"No." Barry had avidly avoided any media sources. They’d probably eviscerated him, just like they had the first time his father had been arrested, only worse because of the DNA evidence connected to Barry. But Len wouldn’t have asked just to torment Barry. "Why?"

A sly smile curved Len's lips. "The Flash is a hero. Everyone knows you helped Captain Cold stop the murderer. You already had plenty of fans, people who played up the supposed Robin Hood angle, but now you're a sensation."

Stunned, Barry glanced out at the city as well, as if he could see the people cheering for him if he looked hard enough. "You're kidding me."

"It'll wear off soon enough. Especially if you go back to your larcenous ways." Len glanced sideways at him.

Now thoroughly confused, Barry stared at him. "Are you... are you saying you're not going to take me in?"

"There's all kinds of speculation about how this is going to fall out. The most popular theory is that the Flash has turned to the Light Side, working with Captain Cold to protect the city. If I tried to arrest you right now, Cold would be destroyed in the eyes of the public, for ‘turning on the ally who heroically stepped up to help him in his hour of need’." Somehow Len kept a straight face through what was clearly a recitation from the media.

"That's... I don't..." Barry clamped his jaw to prevent further incoherent sputtering, his mind spinning. When he was certain he had his thoughts straight, he took a deep breath and tried again. "I've told you before, I'm no hero."

"Bullshit." Len turned back to him. Though his expression was as serious as ever, Barry was startled to see laughter dancing in the older man's eyes. "Why do you keep telling yourself that? You became a CSI to stop killers like your father. Which, as you so pointedly reminded me, is its own form of heroism."

"That's not risking myself like Cold does," Barry retorted. 

"Cisco managed to make contact with that hacker friend of yours," Len continued, ignoring the interjection. "When he explained the situation, she was happy to confirm certain things for us. You've been donating the majority of your ill-gotten gains to STAR Labs for their research to contain deadly metas, and to charities like shelters for battered women and children, or kid's help lines. Protecting people trapped in the same situation as you and your mother."

"Did you seriously just use 'ill-gotten gains' in a sentence?" Barry focused on the ridiculous detail to avoid having to deal with the rest of it. 

Len chuckled. "Loot doesn't have the same ring to it. Spoils of crime? You're deliberately missing the point."

"No, _you're_ missing the point." Frustrated, Barry paced back and forth in a short arc, trying to work off the nervous energy building within him. "Don't make me out to be some kind of saint, Len. I haven't given it _all_ away. And I told you why I really do it. It was never about the money, not after Cisco and Caitlin started helping me."

"The thrill of the chase," Len said, proving that he'd been paying attention after all. "The rush of triumph. The feeling of power, of knowing you're not helpless anymore, that nothing can stop you."

"Yes. All of those."

"And, of course, the chance to toy with Captain Cold." Len smirked at him. "To have me view you as an equal, someone I could desire. So tell me, Ginger. What part of any of those things would be missing as you work with me to stop criminals and protect the city?"

Stunned, Barry stopped short and stared at him. "I..." Nothing further came out. He swallowed hard. "That's..." Nope. Still not processing.

Being a vigilante would certainly provide the kind of adrenaline rush that Barry craved. Stopping criminals before they could hurt anyone was just as much a triumph and display of his power as stealing something without getting caught. 

He _had_ felt all those things at the moment he stood over Henry, knowing that his murderous father was finally beaten. That _Barry_ had beaten him, stood up to him and spat in his face at last. The positive emotions had been buried in all the panic and hate and rage, but they had been there.

His father was an extreme case, granted. It wouldn’t be nearly as much of a personal triumph to stop random criminals. On the flip side, Barry also wouldn’t be suffering from anxiety attacks connected with the crimes.

Watching the emotions spinning through Barry’s expression, Len’s smirk turned to a wicked grin. "Come and play with me, Flash. Take the escape hatch I found for the impossible dilemma you put me in. Swear to me that you'll never steal again, that you'll help me protect the city, and I will count that as appropriate atonement for your past crimes. It’s not punishment by the letter of the law, but as you've reminded me in the past, being a vigilante isn’t exactly legal, either."

This was everything about Captain Cold that had made Barry fall for him, before he realized the object of his new crush was the same as his first. The playful side that Len so rarely allowed himself to show. The ability to relax and see past the rigid boundaries of the rules that defined Len's life.

Could Barry do it? Could he promise to never steal again? Yeah, he would agree to that in a heartbeat, if it meant staying free and being with Len. But could he really bring himself to put his life on the line, for the same people who had been so happy to spit in his face when he needed _their_ help?

No. He would never forgive the world at large for turning their backs on him. Not only as a child, but again when they were so happy to throw him under the bus and believe he was the new killer.

What he could promise was to be there to watch the back of the man who _had_ stepped up to save Barry. To fight at Len's side, protecting him from threats that were too much for Captain Cold, like in the battle with Weather Wizard.

"Okay." His voice was so hoarse even he could barely understand it. Swallowing the tangle of conflicting emotions that were threatening to undo him, Barry tried again. "Okay, I promise. No more stealing, and I'll help you protect the city. Do _not_ for one second dare to think I am your sidekick."

That made Len throw his head back and laugh, a full-bodied, joyful sound. "Partners, then. In and out of the masks."

Partners. Something squeezed tight in Barry's chest, and his eyes grew suspiciously damp. He sped up, giving himself a chance to wipe the tears away without Len seeing them, and composed himself.

Dropping back to normal speed, he nodded. "Partners. I can live with that. STAR Labs needs that money, though."

"Lisa put a couple of corporate sharks she knows on the STAR Labs case. They're working to get the trust money released to STAR Labs as Wells intended it to be used, instead of going to line the pockets of the Labs' former board of directors.”

Barry couldn’t help but laugh, admiring Len’s sly cleverness in getting Lisa involved. Once she took an interest in a cause, there was no stopping her. “Oh, man. They’re not going to know what hit them. Have I mentioned lately that I love your sister?”

Len smirked back at him. “She also dropped a few words in the right ears at city hall. STAR Labs now has a municipal contract to develop safe restraints and holding cells for the meta criminals, so we can take them out of the damn comas and give them real trials.”

"That's fantastic." It would make Caitlin and Cisco a lot happier, too. They'd clearly been uncomfortable with the idea that he'd been funding them, and he had a suspicion they would have started turning down any anonymous donations. He paused, and shivered. “What about my father, though?” 

There was no ‘safe’ restraint or holding cell that he would trust to hold the Reverse Flash. If Henry was awake, he would be plotting to escape. Sooner or later, Barry was terrified he would manage it again.

“Since the Flash proved that a speedster can escape the cuffs, I doubt the court will consider releasing Henry from sedation.” Len shook his head, his gaze sympathetic. “ _Maybe_ when we have a more permanent, secure solution, some kind of Iron Heights metahuman wing that suppresses all powers. Then again, there are unlikely to be any further appeals granted to stay his execution, so the point is moot.”

All the air rushed out of Barry. In the chaos and panic, he’d forgotten that his father was already sentenced to die for his crimes. Of course the new killing spree would push that timetable up. Henry would die, Barry would be free, and the world would be safe from the Lonely Hearts Killer at last.

"As for Barry Allen..." Len's smile turned softer. "Henry confessed he was responsible for the current murders when we confronted him. It’s all on tape, including his statement that he planned to take your heart and mine as part of his revenge on us. We found the missing hearts in the safe, right where they were before, and this time the only fingerprints on the jars were his. Along with Caitlin’s and my testimony that Henry hurt you, the DA officially concluded you had been framed. We didn’t even need to prove _how_ badly injured you were."

The relief was so overwhelming, it was almost painful. Barry hugged himself. "Oh, my god." There would still be people willing to believe the worst of him, but that had always been true. He could deal with assholes. 

If the case ever went to trial, Henry’s defense lawyers would attempt to use the evidence of Barry’s DNA to throw doubt on Henry’s confession - but likely that trial would never happen. Henry’s execution would be scheduled long before the crawling pace of the judicial system got around to dealing with the new murders.

The important thing was that the warrant for Barry’s arrest had been cancelled, and the charges dropped. 

"You're free and clear." Len stepped closer, lowering his voice to something intimate. "Your life is waiting for you. _I've_ been waiting for you. All you ever had to do was come home."

He caught Barry by the waist and pulled him in for a fierce kiss. Barry returned the embrace with interest, winding his arms around Len's neck and holding tight. If he let go, he was afraid it would all turn out to be an impossible dream. Nothing in his life was ever this good.

Nothing but Len. It was always Len who put the good into Barry's world. It was a strange new life he found himself in - being a genuine hero was not something he'd ever thought he would do. He surrendered himself to it wholeheartedly, and to Len along with it.

Partners. In both sides of their lives, for as long as Barry could hold on to the dream. It was everything he'd ever wanted, and more. Love, acceptance, support, joy, happiness. Everything his father had stolen from him, for so long.

Finally, for the first time in his life, Barry truly understood what ’home’ really was.


End file.
